cemetery

cemetery, place set apart for burial or entombment of the dead. Reflecting geography, religious beliefs, social attitudes, and aesthetic and sanitary considerations, cemeteries may be simple or elaborate—built with a grandeur that overshines the community of the living. They may also be regarded as “holy fields” or taboo areas. In countries such as Japan and Mexico, cemeteries are festival places on certain occasions set aside to honour the dead. In other countries and among other religious groups, they are simple and stark and are generally shunned.

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In most cultures, providing a place for the dead was originally a family obligation because of the widespread belief that ties of kinship last beyond death. The land bought by the biblical Abraham from the sons of Heth had as a principal feature a cave in which his dead could be buried. Having a family mausoleum or graveyard is a custom that has endured in many parts of the world. Their locations have often been selected with great care: in China feng shui (“augury”) experts picked sites calculated to provide “good wind and water”; Koreans traditionally hired geomancers to divine auspicious locations, out of the range of vision of “baleful spirits.” The desire to be united with ancestors has been very strong. Dutiful Asian sons return the bodies of their parents to Japan and China at sometimes enormous cost. In the Western world, bodies are frequently shipped by air, rail, or boat “back home.” Even when the tribe or the community took over the obligation, burial in the communal graveyard was a jealously guarded privilege. Strangers could dwell in towns and cities but could not be buried in their cemeteries. Special cemeteries for criminals, foreigners, and the poor were set up by the ancient Jews, the Romans, and other peoples. In Europe from the medieval period until well into the 19th century, convicted witches and murderers, along with suicides, were excluded from cemeteries.

Sanitary precautions have influenced the nature and location of cemeteries. Romans and Jews, for example, regarded cemeteries as hazardous and established their graveyards outside the walls of Rome and Jerusalem. The ancient Egyptians and the Chinese also shared that concern for sanitation. Christians, on the other hand, had no such concern: they used catacombs as combined mass graves and places of worship, and, when they were allowed to practice their religion freely, they buried the dead in churches and churchyards. Overcrowding became very common after the 6th century, when many secular authorities decided to revert to the Roman custom of permitting burial only outside the walls of the city. Church land was not subject to secular sanitary laws, however, and during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the problem intensified.

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By the middle of the 18th century, the consequences of overcrowded churchyard burial and the lack of adequate space for further burial within city limits had become a matter of public apprehension. The vaults under the pavements of the churches and the small spaces of open ground surrounding them were crammed with coffins. Many such buildings became direct sources of disease to those who frequented them. In the churchyards, coffins were placed tier above tier in the graves until they were within a few feet (or sometimes even a few inches) of the surface, and the level of the ground was often raised to that of the lower windows of the church. To make room for fresh interments, the sextons had recourse to the surreptitious removal of bones and partially decayed remains, and in some cases the contents of the graves were systematically transferred to pits adjacent to the site, the gravediggers appropriating the coffin plates, handles, and nails to be sold as waste metal. As a result of those practices, the neighbourhoods of the churchyards were usually unhealthy and their sight intolerable.

In all the large towns those practices prevailed to a greater or lesser degree. In London, however, because of the immense population and the consequent mortality, they more readily attracted public attention, and, after more than one partial measure of relief had been passed, the churchyards were, with a few exceptions, finally closed by law in 1855. Several London cemeteries had been established by private enterprise earlier, but the Burial Acts of 1855 marked the start of general development of cemeteries in Great Britain and Ireland. Burial within the limits of cities and towns was almost everywhere abolished, and, where it was still allowed, it was surrounded by safeguards that made it practically innocuous.

Since 1860 churchyard burials have gradually been discontinued in many countries and have gone through a transition from single burial plots on private property to church graveyards to cemeteries and now to memorial parks where the graves are marked with flat metal markers instead of the customary gravestones. One of the largest 19th-century projects was England’s Brookwood, organized by the London Necropolis Company. It had a private railway station in London and two in the cemetery, its own telegraphic address, and special areas for different religions, nationalities, social organizations, and professions. Perhaps the most famous of the type is California’s Forest Lawn. In the United States there continue to be public cemeteries, cooperative cemeteries, church cemeteries, and large mutually owned cemeteries. In addition to state, county, and municipal cemeteries, the federal government operates a complex of national cemeteries in the United States and abroad for military servicemen and members of their families. In the modern cemetery, lots are sold by the government, religious, commercial, or other organization that has charge. A definite fee is charged for perpetual care, and a charge is made for opening the grave and other duties performed by the sexton or superintendent.