I'm sitting in a room that isn't mine while a lizard glares angrily at me from a half-set-up vivarium. I have one suitcase open; in it is one change of clothes for tomorrow, a blanket, a stuffed dragon, my toothbrush- the bare minimum I need to get by. I'm about to leave- for the second time- the city I love. But when I left it the first time, eighteen years ago, I was a child and confused about what was happening to me. This time, I know. But there's sweetness here- I also know that I will return.
I always knew I'd come back to Chicago. I spent the past three months here, learning who I was and what made me happy. I figure nobody even looks at this any more and that nobody but me even cared, but that Neverwhere post isn't gonna happen. Dredges up too many bad feelings about what began to happen while I was writing it. I left a lot of things in Jasper, mostly feelings that I don't really want back. But as far as I'm concerned, it's all water under the bridge now. I just had the best summer of my entire life and if I have my way, it's going to essentially be my future, too.
Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm gonna start writing again and tell you EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW about antelope teeth.
EVERYTHING.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Write What You Know, Part II
I might be expanding this for publishing one day. It works as a research investigation, I think, but could use a thorough retooling– it is definitely not the best thing I've ever written, a bit more padding out, and more actual experiential stuff. Also, just so you know on these, I have removed all footnotes because those are a pain to do in Wordpress, which is the platform I use for blogging.
Introduction
The stereotype of the archaeologist as grave robber is an unfortunate trope that has clung unshakably to the practice since its earliest days. From colonialist treasure-seekers to today’s media-driven misconceptions, a number of negative influences serve as strong evidence for the imperative to archaeologists to have strong professional ethics. While no area of archaeology is free from the need to make ethical decisions, certain aspects require a significantly greater amount of careful thought. Perhaps the most ethically tricky area of archaeology is practiced by those archaeologists who excavate burial sites. In these cases, it is not enough to merely consider the ethical qualms that come with the excavation of human remains; the excavation practices need to be crafted to address the concerns specific to each excavation. But how best to go about this? How can cultural and ethical concerns be addressed in excavation practice? These are questions that merit discussion, for they effect any excavation which might uncover human remains.
Cultural Concerns
In order to discuss these ethical concerns, they must first be identified. Cultural connections to human remains are perhaps the most important of the ethical concerns, both for making personal decisions about their involvement with human remains and for deciding how to manage the excavation. This is especially true if the culture in question is extant or has one or more clearly defined descendant groups. There have been clashes between scientific analysis and the concerns of such groups worldwide; in Britain, spiritual descendant groups of the neolithic people who constructed Stonehenge call for better treatment of the people they deem their ancestors, while in the United States Native American groups use the umbrella of NAGPRA to ensure fair treatment of their ancestors. The question here becomes the debate between the scientific value of the remains and the cultural importance of leaving them undisturbed. Also, while many religions acknowledge a dualism of soul and body, it takes an unusual amount of desensitization to have no reaction to the sight of human remains. These concerns can lead to personal issues for archaeologists and can affect their choices of digging locations. Buddhists view the disturbance of human remains as inappropriate, while practitioners of Shinto see the dead body as dangerous. This is especially true of modern bodies; what “some would consider as legitimate to scientific inquiry [is] tantamount to desecration to others.” Religion, of course, is not the only factor in these decisions. Secular cultural relevancies and traditions also lead to the development of ethical practices.
Established Practice and Descendant Groups
Established archaeological practices play a very important role in the development of ethical excavations. For example, it is generally agreed among many archaeologists that historical graveyards should not be excavated unless the site is in danger. However, prehistoric burial sites are not often afforded such reluctance. Regardless of age, there is always an element of violation when excavating intentional burial sites. Memorials have a living memory of their own– bodies are deposited with intent. Unfortunately, sometimes this intent is unclear. This is where descendant groups can be either very helpful or very harmful to the integrity of the excavation. This is seen in many high-profile excavations, especially when the human remains in question are of contested origins. The Kennewick Man is perhaps the most famous of these, with dozens of groups claiming his bones as those of their ancestors. When a case is as contested as this one, it is vital for the archaeologists involved to make sure that the group or groups with the most legitimate claim are the ones involved with the excavation. Stonehenge has also seen its fair share of non-linear descendant groups; modern druids and pagans claim the remains found there as their ancestors, despite no proof of a genetic link. Cooperation with descendent groups is absolutely necessary for the ethical treatment of human remains. While negotiations may be thorny and can last for years, often they come with great reward. In the United States, anthropologists working under NAGPRA have been forced to repatriate many Native American skeletons. Historically, though, many of these skeletal collections were neglected. In Mississippi, only 16.4% of the skeletons collected before NAGPRA had been studied at all. In contrast, 97.9% of skeletons collected in Iowa had been studied, which is important because Iowa has the longest history of repatriation of any state. This demonstrates the effectiveness of cooperation with descendent groups- it provides motivation and occasionally funding for research.
Safety Issues
Next to the moral ethical concerns, there are physicalities involved with the excavation of human remains that need to be addressed. Often they are found in unstable ground conditions, where grave digging activity has made the soil loose. Historic bodies also have the rick of harboring pathogens; even today, there are concerns that the bodies of smallpox victims represent a health threat. The safety of the excavators and of the general public is a vital ethical concern in these excavations, and although the situation of each excavation is unique, a set of basic safety precautions should be observed at all burial sites. At prehistoric sites, an observation of difficult terrain might be the only extra safety precaution taken. At a modern site, the British Institute of Field Archaeologists recommends heavy gloves, a body suit, and a head-covering filter mask as part of any site’s list of rules. While this might seem extreme, it demonstrates just how important it is not to overlook safety concerns. Human remains are not a subject to be taken lightly– engaging with them can provide an active risk to excavators, a risk that it would be highly unethical to ignore.
Beyond Discussion: Putting Ethics Into Practice
These are the key features needed to form a good ethical practice while excavating human remains. Having them theoretically, however, is not enough. It would be useful to examine their applications in the field in order to see how actually putting these practices into use works. While no excavations are identical, there are several instances that can be considered landmark cases that highlight the benefits of taking these ethical concerns into consideration. One of the notable instances is the excavation of the African Burial Ground in New York City. After the initial discovery in 1991, the concerns of the descendants of the graveyard’s inhabitants were immediately taken into effect. Construction was halted, the site’s plans were altered to include a memorial, and, perhaps most importantly, the remains were sent to Howard University for study. Howard, being a historically Black institution, was seen as a good choice because it was obvious that they would take the descendant group’s interests to heart. While this meant that the bones would have to travel further, this was a case of an obvious biological descendant group expressing their wishes and having them honored. All in all, the excavation was considered a triumph for both the descendant group and the scientists. While initially there were struggles with the site’s memorial plans, the handling of the remains from the African Burial Ground during excavation, research, and reburial was considered a great success by civil rights activists, scientists, and citizens alike.
The importance of these ethical concerns has led several organizations to release official best practice policies and codes of ethics for their excavations. While no two excavations are the same, best practice statements are an excellent base for ensuring the observation of ethics in the field. The World Anthropology Council’s Vermillion Accord on Human Remains is a prominent example of one such policy. The seven articles of the accord were drafted to create a balance between scientific and spiritual value. They explicitly address the indispensability of legitimatizing the concerns of both scientists and descendent groups, as well as insisting upon respect for all human remains. Notably, the accord also creates a hierarchy of legitimacy for the concerns of various groups in the way that it is numbered. First precedence goes to the “wishes of the dead… when they are known or can be reasonably inferred,” and then to “the local community and the relatives of the dead.” This is important, for cultures change and certain descendant groups can carry their own agendas, so the article protects the original depositors’ intentions. The WAC’s ethics code also contains accords detailing the proper treatment and display of sacred objects. This includes grave goods and other elements that give the human remains context.
The British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology has its own ethics code that deals more strictly with human remains and the behavior of the archaeologists who excavate and study them. They point out that the politically-correct tendency to allow reburial is not always the ethical decision:
“Destruction of information about our past by indiscriminate reburial of skeletal
collections is unethical. Nevertheless, in some cases of contested remains, moral
rights of a claimant group over the remains may outweigh this consideration, so
that reburial rather than retention is the more appropriate response.”
BABAO also emphasizes the role of the archaeologist as an educator, addressing the concern of accessibility. Essentially, they make it a point in their code of professional ethics to discourage sensationalism and exaggeration of the conditions surrounding the excavation of human remains; they do their part to make sure that the myth of the graverobber is not perpetuated.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the excavation of grave sites is a delicate issue and one that requires a multifaceted approach in each situation. However, with the careful consideration of the ethical issues involved, it is possible to excavate without arousing moral concerns. By respecting the desires and traditions of one’s own culture, honoring the culture or cultures tied closely to the excavation’s subject, and adhering to overarching ethical guidelines, an archaeologist can shape their own best practice and address the multifaceted ethical issues that come with the excavation of human remains.
"Escaping Burke and Hare: The Ethics of Graveyard Archaeology"
Introduction
The stereotype of the archaeologist as grave robber is an unfortunate trope that has clung unshakably to the practice since its earliest days. From colonialist treasure-seekers to today’s media-driven misconceptions, a number of negative influences serve as strong evidence for the imperative to archaeologists to have strong professional ethics. While no area of archaeology is free from the need to make ethical decisions, certain aspects require a significantly greater amount of careful thought. Perhaps the most ethically tricky area of archaeology is practiced by those archaeologists who excavate burial sites. In these cases, it is not enough to merely consider the ethical qualms that come with the excavation of human remains; the excavation practices need to be crafted to address the concerns specific to each excavation. But how best to go about this? How can cultural and ethical concerns be addressed in excavation practice? These are questions that merit discussion, for they effect any excavation which might uncover human remains.
Cultural Concerns
In order to discuss these ethical concerns, they must first be identified. Cultural connections to human remains are perhaps the most important of the ethical concerns, both for making personal decisions about their involvement with human remains and for deciding how to manage the excavation. This is especially true if the culture in question is extant or has one or more clearly defined descendant groups. There have been clashes between scientific analysis and the concerns of such groups worldwide; in Britain, spiritual descendant groups of the neolithic people who constructed Stonehenge call for better treatment of the people they deem their ancestors, while in the United States Native American groups use the umbrella of NAGPRA to ensure fair treatment of their ancestors. The question here becomes the debate between the scientific value of the remains and the cultural importance of leaving them undisturbed. Also, while many religions acknowledge a dualism of soul and body, it takes an unusual amount of desensitization to have no reaction to the sight of human remains. These concerns can lead to personal issues for archaeologists and can affect their choices of digging locations. Buddhists view the disturbance of human remains as inappropriate, while practitioners of Shinto see the dead body as dangerous. This is especially true of modern bodies; what “some would consider as legitimate to scientific inquiry [is] tantamount to desecration to others.” Religion, of course, is not the only factor in these decisions. Secular cultural relevancies and traditions also lead to the development of ethical practices.
Established Practice and Descendant Groups
Established archaeological practices play a very important role in the development of ethical excavations. For example, it is generally agreed among many archaeologists that historical graveyards should not be excavated unless the site is in danger. However, prehistoric burial sites are not often afforded such reluctance. Regardless of age, there is always an element of violation when excavating intentional burial sites. Memorials have a living memory of their own– bodies are deposited with intent. Unfortunately, sometimes this intent is unclear. This is where descendant groups can be either very helpful or very harmful to the integrity of the excavation. This is seen in many high-profile excavations, especially when the human remains in question are of contested origins. The Kennewick Man is perhaps the most famous of these, with dozens of groups claiming his bones as those of their ancestors. When a case is as contested as this one, it is vital for the archaeologists involved to make sure that the group or groups with the most legitimate claim are the ones involved with the excavation. Stonehenge has also seen its fair share of non-linear descendant groups; modern druids and pagans claim the remains found there as their ancestors, despite no proof of a genetic link. Cooperation with descendent groups is absolutely necessary for the ethical treatment of human remains. While negotiations may be thorny and can last for years, often they come with great reward. In the United States, anthropologists working under NAGPRA have been forced to repatriate many Native American skeletons. Historically, though, many of these skeletal collections were neglected. In Mississippi, only 16.4% of the skeletons collected before NAGPRA had been studied at all. In contrast, 97.9% of skeletons collected in Iowa had been studied, which is important because Iowa has the longest history of repatriation of any state. This demonstrates the effectiveness of cooperation with descendent groups- it provides motivation and occasionally funding for research.
Safety Issues
Next to the moral ethical concerns, there are physicalities involved with the excavation of human remains that need to be addressed. Often they are found in unstable ground conditions, where grave digging activity has made the soil loose. Historic bodies also have the rick of harboring pathogens; even today, there are concerns that the bodies of smallpox victims represent a health threat. The safety of the excavators and of the general public is a vital ethical concern in these excavations, and although the situation of each excavation is unique, a set of basic safety precautions should be observed at all burial sites. At prehistoric sites, an observation of difficult terrain might be the only extra safety precaution taken. At a modern site, the British Institute of Field Archaeologists recommends heavy gloves, a body suit, and a head-covering filter mask as part of any site’s list of rules. While this might seem extreme, it demonstrates just how important it is not to overlook safety concerns. Human remains are not a subject to be taken lightly– engaging with them can provide an active risk to excavators, a risk that it would be highly unethical to ignore.
Beyond Discussion: Putting Ethics Into Practice
These are the key features needed to form a good ethical practice while excavating human remains. Having them theoretically, however, is not enough. It would be useful to examine their applications in the field in order to see how actually putting these practices into use works. While no excavations are identical, there are several instances that can be considered landmark cases that highlight the benefits of taking these ethical concerns into consideration. One of the notable instances is the excavation of the African Burial Ground in New York City. After the initial discovery in 1991, the concerns of the descendants of the graveyard’s inhabitants were immediately taken into effect. Construction was halted, the site’s plans were altered to include a memorial, and, perhaps most importantly, the remains were sent to Howard University for study. Howard, being a historically Black institution, was seen as a good choice because it was obvious that they would take the descendant group’s interests to heart. While this meant that the bones would have to travel further, this was a case of an obvious biological descendant group expressing their wishes and having them honored. All in all, the excavation was considered a triumph for both the descendant group and the scientists. While initially there were struggles with the site’s memorial plans, the handling of the remains from the African Burial Ground during excavation, research, and reburial was considered a great success by civil rights activists, scientists, and citizens alike.
The importance of these ethical concerns has led several organizations to release official best practice policies and codes of ethics for their excavations. While no two excavations are the same, best practice statements are an excellent base for ensuring the observation of ethics in the field. The World Anthropology Council’s Vermillion Accord on Human Remains is a prominent example of one such policy. The seven articles of the accord were drafted to create a balance between scientific and spiritual value. They explicitly address the indispensability of legitimatizing the concerns of both scientists and descendent groups, as well as insisting upon respect for all human remains. Notably, the accord also creates a hierarchy of legitimacy for the concerns of various groups in the way that it is numbered. First precedence goes to the “wishes of the dead… when they are known or can be reasonably inferred,” and then to “the local community and the relatives of the dead.” This is important, for cultures change and certain descendant groups can carry their own agendas, so the article protects the original depositors’ intentions. The WAC’s ethics code also contains accords detailing the proper treatment and display of sacred objects. This includes grave goods and other elements that give the human remains context.
The British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology has its own ethics code that deals more strictly with human remains and the behavior of the archaeologists who excavate and study them. They point out that the politically-correct tendency to allow reburial is not always the ethical decision:
“Destruction of information about our past by indiscriminate reburial of skeletal
collections is unethical. Nevertheless, in some cases of contested remains, moral
rights of a claimant group over the remains may outweigh this consideration, so
that reburial rather than retention is the more appropriate response.”
BABAO also emphasizes the role of the archaeologist as an educator, addressing the concern of accessibility. Essentially, they make it a point in their code of professional ethics to discourage sensationalism and exaggeration of the conditions surrounding the excavation of human remains; they do their part to make sure that the myth of the graverobber is not perpetuated.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the excavation of grave sites is a delicate issue and one that requires a multifaceted approach in each situation. However, with the careful consideration of the ethical issues involved, it is possible to excavate without arousing moral concerns. By respecting the desires and traditions of one’s own culture, honoring the culture or cultures tied closely to the excavation’s subject, and adhering to overarching ethical guidelines, an archaeologist can shape their own best practice and address the multifaceted ethical issues that come with the excavation of human remains.
Write What You Know, Part I
I don't just hang out in graveyards. I'm not fourteen any more, and I've mostly got the angst turned down.
Mostly.
But all kidding aside, it is important that I put what I learn into practice. This is what is important to me- graveyards are a pretty big part of my life, after all. So I thought I'd share a couple of examples of how I've managed to incorporate it into my education. The following are a couple of essays that I've written about issues surrounding graveyards and their archaeology.
It is a common scene in Gothic literature. Maybe it is the damsel in distress, fleeing barefoot through the headstones in her billowy white nightgown. Maybe it is the corpse bride, wandering sylph-like through the mausolea and memorials, unaware of any watchers. Maybe it is the villain, hiding amongst the bones of the dead. Maybe it is the gravedigger, preparing for the next day’s funeral when a ghost chooses to appear to him, imparting a message of impending doom. Or maybe it is the romantic hero, come to lay flowers at the foot of his dead beloved. Whoever the character, the setting is as familiar to the sense of the Gothic as any location could possibly be. It is the graveyard, and everybody has seen it before.
The graveyard or cemetery is one of the most common tropes in Gothic literature. However, the walled place where the crosses are all in a row and shady rest under the trees is usual is a relatively recent development, with the oldest proper graveyard having just celebrated its 200th anniversary. The graveyard as we know it is not a static concept; rather, it has changed in the past and may yet change again. And as the concept of what makes a graveyard developed, so to did its role in the Gothic. Over time, burial grounds changed from a set piece to a dynamic location with which characters actively engage and interact, essentially mirroring their real-time development.
In 1764, when the first Gothic novel was published, there were no graveyards as they are understood today. All bodies were buried in the greens and lawns around churches. The majority of this space would invariably be consecrated and fenced, while a section would be kept separate for the burials of foreigners, suicides, criminals, and heathens. Occasionally, disease would necessitate the use of mass graves, but generally in Europe and especially in England, individual burials in consecrated ground was the normal way to treat a body. However, while the ideal was one body to a grave, this never happened. Urban expansion and high mortality rates, particularly amongst the lower economic classes, led to churchyards simultaneously shrinking and having to handle higher traffic. Complicating the matter further was the intolerance of cremation; it was considered a serious offense to desecrate a body by burning it. Stories of clandestine cremations were later used as bases for more lurid tales, one such being that of Sweeney Todd, where the scent of burning bodies attracts attention from the neighbors and ultimately leads to Todd’s undoing. This has a factual background, coming from places like Spa Fields where illegal cremations were performed by night1. Churches with large crypts had the option of disinterring the bodies after decomposition and storing the bones, but small parishes could only dig deeper. In some London churchyards, bodies were buried twenty-five deep. Is it any wonder, then, that graves and the churchyard were so easily associated with terror?
Early Gothic authors certainly seized upon them as perfect scenery for the macabre. They were popular settings for chase sequences or apparitions. However, characters didn’t stay long– at least, not living characters. A churchyard might be mentioned many times, but involvement with one was dangerous. Only two kinds of people stayed long in churchyards: the dead and the evil (who were often soon-to-be dead). Matthew Lewis’s The Monk is a good case of this: Early in Matilda’s corruption of Ambrosio, the couple take refuge in a tomb. This is foreshadowing for their later use of mausolea. Ambrosio’s greatest tomb-related sin occurs when he enters the drugged Antonia’s tomb to take advantage of her “by the side of three putrid half-corrupted Bodies.2” Although he lifts her from the coffin itself, “the gloom of the vault” and “the surrounding silence3” only serve to further his unholy desires. The sepulchre has become “Love’s bower4” to Antonio; clearly, here, he has become mad. No person in their right mind would consider a crypt full of decaying bodies romantic, after all.
Matilda, for her part, has been using a tomb as a base of operations for her demon-summoning. Little explanation is needed as to why this leads to an unpleasant fate– dealing with magic is dangerous enough, but becoming a black magician seals one’s fate. In the endgame of the novel, the two attempt to take refuge in the tomb, which has been a somewhat-hidden door. This does not fool the soldiers of the Inquisition, come to find them, and the two are dragged from the tomb, only to return to it later. While both survive their initial encounters with the churchyard, neither emerges uncorrupt. The decay around them essentially ruined them; they entered the verboten land of the dead and could not come out and rejoin the living.
For many years, the idea of a churchyard was the only expression of a burial ground in literature. This concept began to change in 1804 with the opening of the Père Lachaise in Paris. This was the first cemetery to use the familiar park-like setting distanced from main residential areas. It also was not attached to a particular parish, meaning that it allowed for an intermingling of social classes that was unlikely to happen in life. Death, after all, is the great equalizer, and having both rich and poor in the same ground was a revolutionary idea. For many years, the Père Lachaise was unique. However, the design was adopted in London to deal with the unpleasant churchyard situation. By the 1830s, churchyards were no longer a viable option. The crowded areas of London had the greatest problems. Parish membership was determined by residence, so there was very little mingling of social classes within parishes- and thus, within churchyards. Since poor neighborhoods tended to be the most crowded and have higher rates of mortality, their churchyards were filled beyond capacity. Aside from the stench of decomposition, this overcrowding became a serious health issue, leading to breakouts of cholera. In 1832, Parliament put forth a motion to abolish the old practice of churchyard burials and create cemeteries like the one in Paris. This act, known as the Cemeteries Act of 1832, encouraged private companies to create incorporated graveyards. Kensal Green was the first of the incorporated, public graveyards. While it was Anglican, it was not exclusive to one parish, which was a first for London. Six others followed, eventually known as the “Magnificent Seven.” For years, these large cemeteries have served as London’s main burial grounds. These seven park-like graveyards were renowned for the beauty and grace of their landscaping and architecture, leading to a revolutionary new way of thinking about burial grounds.
By the time of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the cemetery’s role in both society and literature had changed. This had much to do with the popularity of the London cemeteries as more than burial grounds. In the late Victorian age, Highgate had become a fashionable destination. Instead of being foreboding places, they were welcoming. They had become liminal spaces, where the dead slumbered peacefully and the living came to visit. It was a place where the living could engage with the dead, and this was seized upon by the Gothic authors- notably, Bram Stoker. In Dracula, the cemetery is not a place of flight, but of action. The characters engage with the space in a way that was previously impossible. While the space is the domain of the dead (and the undead), it is also a space that the living can use and emerge from alive.
However, Stoker does not abandon the older version of the graveyard entirely. The first pivotal burial ground scene occurs prior to the return to England, when Jonathan Harker discovers “an old ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard5.” The soil that Dracula brings to England is being excavated here; Dracula himself sleeps in the vaults. In this sequence, Stoker deliberately evokes the old image of the outlawed churchyards, both to give his readers a sense of an older world and a more backwards world. Dracula’s first victim in London, Petrof Skinsky, is found in a religiously-identified churchyard. He is “found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal6.” This brief entanglement of churchyard and macabre calls to mind the often-grisly scenes of the pre-Act churchyards.
In contrast, the place of Lucy Westenra’s interment is clearly meant to evoke Highgate Cemetery. Although it is identified as “the churchyard at Kingstead7,” Stoker’s description of large family mausolea, “ghastly white” tombs, and “cypress… yew… [and] juniper8” call to mind the appearance and plantings of the park cemeteries. It is said that Stoker often took his lunch in Highgate, which at his time would have been a voguish pursuit. Curiously, the one feature of the graveyard that sets it apart from the actual Highgate is its low wall, which is mentioned by Dr. Seward. This distinction in all likeliness was made because, while Stoker’s audience would not have been aware of the various facets of fictional vampire lore, they would have been familiar with Highgate and the other London cemeteries. All of these had high walls that were difficult to climb. They may have questioned the group’s ability to get over such a wall, so Stoker paid attention to this detail. It is also quite possible that he is drawing on the imagery attached to several Dublin churchyards, many of which do have low walls. Ultimately, this makes Kingstead a synthetic accretion of various burial grounds from Stoker’s experience, which paradoxically removes it from and places it within the real world. It is a place to be understood, but not really a place to visit, except in the mind’s eye.
But aside from the short wall, trees, and white memorials, Kingstead has little textual imagery. It is not described with the lavish detail that authors like Anne Radcliffe used to detail their environments; there is no need. Essentially, by the time of Dracula the cemetery has become a codified trope: if the author mentions a cemetery, he or she bypasses the need to give an elaborate description of the place and can focus on the action. Details that the author chooses to give only enhance the atmosphere; they do not redefine it. In these cases, familiarity is actually a good thing and adds to the ghastly air by letting horror seep into peoples’ ideas of a place they know intimately.
The blurring of lines between such distinct dichotomies that occurs in large graveyards is also an element that contributes to a strong Gothic atmosphere. The undead Lucy Westenra is obviously the prime example of this- she is a monster neither alive nor dead, her beauty twisted into a perverse sexuality. She is anathema to those who loved her in life, for she has broached one barrier too far. In Dracula, social classes can mingle in life– an American, a Dutch Catholic, a lawyer, and a lord become a team when pressed by a common threat– just as they can mingle in death in the graveyard. But life and death? That line cannot be crossed without invoking the monstrous.
In the most recent Gothic, cemeteries evoke a polarized reaction, obtaining a new dichotomy to smudge. They are either places that have been completely romanticized, or they are places of terror. In America, many folktales and urban legends have developed around the idea of a haunted cemetery; they are often guarded on Halloween night to deter vandals and thrill-seekers. In Britain, Highgate’s status as a gothic setting has continued in both literature (Neil Gaiman tends to make use of it) and other media. It is a common filming location, and in the 1970s, was home to the apocryphal Highgate Vampire.
Of course, not all graveyards are frightening. Particularly often in music, they are places of comfort. Themes of loss and sorrow run deep in the Gothic, and cemeteries as we understand them today can help mourners transition between stages of grief. Because of their accessibility, they make it possible to commune with the dead, which can often help a mourner move on. It is unlikely that this feeling will ever change, but it is also unlikely that cemeteries will remain exactly as they are, both from a literary and social standpoint.
Part of the cemetery’s allure is the general age of these burial grounds. Most are old,
But like every other manmade design, cemeteries will change as society changes. The current trend is the “green cemetery,” a take on the park setting that eliminates the memorial stones, ornate tombs, and ideas about corruption and preservation. These cemeteries allow bodies to decay naturally and are very peaceful places that have completely lost the sinister aura of their predecessors.
However, natural burials have made appearances in American horror in the form of the Native American burial ground, upon which foolish developers tend to build and terrible things then tend to happen. Perhaps in the future, these natural burial grounds will converge with them as a stock environment for the use of authors wishing to give their stories a gloomy, dangerous atmosphere. The potential for contrast is intriguing. But regardless of future possibilities, it seems unlikely that the graveyard as a setting for Gothic tales will ever fade from vogue. The cemetery has become too useful as a shorthand for fear, darkness, loss, and the general flavour of the Gothic.
Mostly.
But all kidding aside, it is important that I put what I learn into practice. This is what is important to me- graveyards are a pretty big part of my life, after all. So I thought I'd share a couple of examples of how I've managed to incorporate it into my education. The following are a couple of essays that I've written about issues surrounding graveyards and their archaeology.
Houses of the Dead: The Evolution of Graveyards in Gothic Literature
It is a common scene in Gothic literature. Maybe it is the damsel in distress, fleeing barefoot through the headstones in her billowy white nightgown. Maybe it is the corpse bride, wandering sylph-like through the mausolea and memorials, unaware of any watchers. Maybe it is the villain, hiding amongst the bones of the dead. Maybe it is the gravedigger, preparing for the next day’s funeral when a ghost chooses to appear to him, imparting a message of impending doom. Or maybe it is the romantic hero, come to lay flowers at the foot of his dead beloved. Whoever the character, the setting is as familiar to the sense of the Gothic as any location could possibly be. It is the graveyard, and everybody has seen it before.
The graveyard or cemetery is one of the most common tropes in Gothic literature. However, the walled place where the crosses are all in a row and shady rest under the trees is usual is a relatively recent development, with the oldest proper graveyard having just celebrated its 200th anniversary. The graveyard as we know it is not a static concept; rather, it has changed in the past and may yet change again. And as the concept of what makes a graveyard developed, so to did its role in the Gothic. Over time, burial grounds changed from a set piece to a dynamic location with which characters actively engage and interact, essentially mirroring their real-time development.
In 1764, when the first Gothic novel was published, there were no graveyards as they are understood today. All bodies were buried in the greens and lawns around churches. The majority of this space would invariably be consecrated and fenced, while a section would be kept separate for the burials of foreigners, suicides, criminals, and heathens. Occasionally, disease would necessitate the use of mass graves, but generally in Europe and especially in England, individual burials in consecrated ground was the normal way to treat a body. However, while the ideal was one body to a grave, this never happened. Urban expansion and high mortality rates, particularly amongst the lower economic classes, led to churchyards simultaneously shrinking and having to handle higher traffic. Complicating the matter further was the intolerance of cremation; it was considered a serious offense to desecrate a body by burning it. Stories of clandestine cremations were later used as bases for more lurid tales, one such being that of Sweeney Todd, where the scent of burning bodies attracts attention from the neighbors and ultimately leads to Todd’s undoing. This has a factual background, coming from places like Spa Fields where illegal cremations were performed by night1. Churches with large crypts had the option of disinterring the bodies after decomposition and storing the bones, but small parishes could only dig deeper. In some London churchyards, bodies were buried twenty-five deep. Is it any wonder, then, that graves and the churchyard were so easily associated with terror?
Early Gothic authors certainly seized upon them as perfect scenery for the macabre. They were popular settings for chase sequences or apparitions. However, characters didn’t stay long– at least, not living characters. A churchyard might be mentioned many times, but involvement with one was dangerous. Only two kinds of people stayed long in churchyards: the dead and the evil (who were often soon-to-be dead). Matthew Lewis’s The Monk is a good case of this: Early in Matilda’s corruption of Ambrosio, the couple take refuge in a tomb. This is foreshadowing for their later use of mausolea. Ambrosio’s greatest tomb-related sin occurs when he enters the drugged Antonia’s tomb to take advantage of her “by the side of three putrid half-corrupted Bodies.2” Although he lifts her from the coffin itself, “the gloom of the vault” and “the surrounding silence3” only serve to further his unholy desires. The sepulchre has become “Love’s bower4” to Antonio; clearly, here, he has become mad. No person in their right mind would consider a crypt full of decaying bodies romantic, after all.
Matilda, for her part, has been using a tomb as a base of operations for her demon-summoning. Little explanation is needed as to why this leads to an unpleasant fate– dealing with magic is dangerous enough, but becoming a black magician seals one’s fate. In the endgame of the novel, the two attempt to take refuge in the tomb, which has been a somewhat-hidden door. This does not fool the soldiers of the Inquisition, come to find them, and the two are dragged from the tomb, only to return to it later. While both survive their initial encounters with the churchyard, neither emerges uncorrupt. The decay around them essentially ruined them; they entered the verboten land of the dead and could not come out and rejoin the living.
For many years, the idea of a churchyard was the only expression of a burial ground in literature. This concept began to change in 1804 with the opening of the Père Lachaise in Paris. This was the first cemetery to use the familiar park-like setting distanced from main residential areas. It also was not attached to a particular parish, meaning that it allowed for an intermingling of social classes that was unlikely to happen in life. Death, after all, is the great equalizer, and having both rich and poor in the same ground was a revolutionary idea. For many years, the Père Lachaise was unique. However, the design was adopted in London to deal with the unpleasant churchyard situation. By the 1830s, churchyards were no longer a viable option. The crowded areas of London had the greatest problems. Parish membership was determined by residence, so there was very little mingling of social classes within parishes- and thus, within churchyards. Since poor neighborhoods tended to be the most crowded and have higher rates of mortality, their churchyards were filled beyond capacity. Aside from the stench of decomposition, this overcrowding became a serious health issue, leading to breakouts of cholera. In 1832, Parliament put forth a motion to abolish the old practice of churchyard burials and create cemeteries like the one in Paris. This act, known as the Cemeteries Act of 1832, encouraged private companies to create incorporated graveyards. Kensal Green was the first of the incorporated, public graveyards. While it was Anglican, it was not exclusive to one parish, which was a first for London. Six others followed, eventually known as the “Magnificent Seven.” For years, these large cemeteries have served as London’s main burial grounds. These seven park-like graveyards were renowned for the beauty and grace of their landscaping and architecture, leading to a revolutionary new way of thinking about burial grounds.
By the time of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the cemetery’s role in both society and literature had changed. This had much to do with the popularity of the London cemeteries as more than burial grounds. In the late Victorian age, Highgate had become a fashionable destination. Instead of being foreboding places, they were welcoming. They had become liminal spaces, where the dead slumbered peacefully and the living came to visit. It was a place where the living could engage with the dead, and this was seized upon by the Gothic authors- notably, Bram Stoker. In Dracula, the cemetery is not a place of flight, but of action. The characters engage with the space in a way that was previously impossible. While the space is the domain of the dead (and the undead), it is also a space that the living can use and emerge from alive.
However, Stoker does not abandon the older version of the graveyard entirely. The first pivotal burial ground scene occurs prior to the return to England, when Jonathan Harker discovers “an old ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard5.” The soil that Dracula brings to England is being excavated here; Dracula himself sleeps in the vaults. In this sequence, Stoker deliberately evokes the old image of the outlawed churchyards, both to give his readers a sense of an older world and a more backwards world. Dracula’s first victim in London, Petrof Skinsky, is found in a religiously-identified churchyard. He is “found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal6.” This brief entanglement of churchyard and macabre calls to mind the often-grisly scenes of the pre-Act churchyards.
In contrast, the place of Lucy Westenra’s interment is clearly meant to evoke Highgate Cemetery. Although it is identified as “the churchyard at Kingstead7,” Stoker’s description of large family mausolea, “ghastly white” tombs, and “cypress… yew… [and] juniper8” call to mind the appearance and plantings of the park cemeteries. It is said that Stoker often took his lunch in Highgate, which at his time would have been a voguish pursuit. Curiously, the one feature of the graveyard that sets it apart from the actual Highgate is its low wall, which is mentioned by Dr. Seward. This distinction in all likeliness was made because, while Stoker’s audience would not have been aware of the various facets of fictional vampire lore, they would have been familiar with Highgate and the other London cemeteries. All of these had high walls that were difficult to climb. They may have questioned the group’s ability to get over such a wall, so Stoker paid attention to this detail. It is also quite possible that he is drawing on the imagery attached to several Dublin churchyards, many of which do have low walls. Ultimately, this makes Kingstead a synthetic accretion of various burial grounds from Stoker’s experience, which paradoxically removes it from and places it within the real world. It is a place to be understood, but not really a place to visit, except in the mind’s eye.
But aside from the short wall, trees, and white memorials, Kingstead has little textual imagery. It is not described with the lavish detail that authors like Anne Radcliffe used to detail their environments; there is no need. Essentially, by the time of Dracula the cemetery has become a codified trope: if the author mentions a cemetery, he or she bypasses the need to give an elaborate description of the place and can focus on the action. Details that the author chooses to give only enhance the atmosphere; they do not redefine it. In these cases, familiarity is actually a good thing and adds to the ghastly air by letting horror seep into peoples’ ideas of a place they know intimately.
The blurring of lines between such distinct dichotomies that occurs in large graveyards is also an element that contributes to a strong Gothic atmosphere. The undead Lucy Westenra is obviously the prime example of this- she is a monster neither alive nor dead, her beauty twisted into a perverse sexuality. She is anathema to those who loved her in life, for she has broached one barrier too far. In Dracula, social classes can mingle in life– an American, a Dutch Catholic, a lawyer, and a lord become a team when pressed by a common threat– just as they can mingle in death in the graveyard. But life and death? That line cannot be crossed without invoking the monstrous.
In the most recent Gothic, cemeteries evoke a polarized reaction, obtaining a new dichotomy to smudge. They are either places that have been completely romanticized, or they are places of terror. In America, many folktales and urban legends have developed around the idea of a haunted cemetery; they are often guarded on Halloween night to deter vandals and thrill-seekers. In Britain, Highgate’s status as a gothic setting has continued in both literature (Neil Gaiman tends to make use of it) and other media. It is a common filming location, and in the 1970s, was home to the apocryphal Highgate Vampire.
Of course, not all graveyards are frightening. Particularly often in music, they are places of comfort. Themes of loss and sorrow run deep in the Gothic, and cemeteries as we understand them today can help mourners transition between stages of grief. Because of their accessibility, they make it possible to commune with the dead, which can often help a mourner move on. It is unlikely that this feeling will ever change, but it is also unlikely that cemeteries will remain exactly as they are, both from a literary and social standpoint.
Part of the cemetery’s allure is the general age of these burial grounds. Most are old,
But like every other manmade design, cemeteries will change as society changes. The current trend is the “green cemetery,” a take on the park setting that eliminates the memorial stones, ornate tombs, and ideas about corruption and preservation. These cemeteries allow bodies to decay naturally and are very peaceful places that have completely lost the sinister aura of their predecessors.
However, natural burials have made appearances in American horror in the form of the Native American burial ground, upon which foolish developers tend to build and terrible things then tend to happen. Perhaps in the future, these natural burial grounds will converge with them as a stock environment for the use of authors wishing to give their stories a gloomy, dangerous atmosphere. The potential for contrast is intriguing. But regardless of future possibilities, it seems unlikely that the graveyard as a setting for Gothic tales will ever fade from vogue. The cemetery has become too useful as a shorthand for fear, darkness, loss, and the general flavour of the Gothic.
Managing Landscape
People, no matter where they are, have to engage with their landscape. Even nomads change the land around them in one way or another- there's just no escaping it. The way a landscape is altered is highly indicative of cultural values. If I may, I'm going to direct you to two features near Guildhall. The first is the landscaping directly outside of the Guildhall itself.
That lovely little marsh there is right outside of this:
Interesting, I think. On one hand, you have this clean, crisp white building with its neogothic face and vertical lines. Outside of it, you have this sprawling water garden with paved paths and black marble. The organic forms of the plants and the anatine visitors combined with the peaceful curves of the water provide a welcome contrast to the Guildhall area's neoclassical and neogothic architecture.
They like to do this in London. They build spires in the middle of the street that look like subterranean churches. I have no idea how or why they do this, but they do.
I think by demonstrating this, I'm effectively explaining why London's greenspace is so vital to its continued existence. Humans are a complex bunch. We need variety and we also need fresh air. The greenspaces are natural havens in an industrial city. And London, thanks to lessons from the early years of the Industrial Revolution, has learned very much why places where the air can purify are important. Do you guys know about peppered moths?
I didn't take this picture- the BBC did. This is a representation of the light and melanistic forms of the peppered moth. Before the Industrial Revolution, the light form was the most common, with less than one percent of moths showing melanism. But during the Industrial Revolution, the belching factory smoke stained everything dark. The melanistic moths rose in frequency until they outnumbered the light moths. This trend continued until 1962, when Britain reported the first decline of the dark moths in about a hundred years. This has happened in America as well, separately from the European moths. As well as being an excellent example of forced selection and microevolution, it's a very visible warning of the dangers of damaging the landscape with pollutants. Urban greenspace represents humanity's understanding of these issues, I think.
But, like I sorta said before, it's not just ecological issues that make greenspace so important. It's also psychological!
This former burial ground is now maintained by one of London's professional guilds: The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Rather than highlighting its natural form or its past as a churchyard, they chose to landscape it formally, turning it into a proper small garden.
Most of the Guildhall area squares don't follow such a rigid form, but seeing this formal garden architecture is a reminder of human impact on our landscape. This is obviously what the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths sees as relaxing and peaceful. And it is- it's a quiet space that smells nice and is partially sunken into the ground. The manicured part of the garden- the part without the graves- is essentially subterranean, separating the people who choose to use it from the main thoroughfare above. It creates this removed space for them, allowing them to detach from the business world and have a moment of tranquility. With stress being as serious a worry as it is these days, and inactivity contributing to all kinds of unwellness (including obesity and mental distress), a place to walk and hide from the world's realities must be a welcome relief.
That lovely little marsh there is right outside of this:
Interesting, I think. On one hand, you have this clean, crisp white building with its neogothic face and vertical lines. Outside of it, you have this sprawling water garden with paved paths and black marble. The organic forms of the plants and the anatine visitors combined with the peaceful curves of the water provide a welcome contrast to the Guildhall area's neoclassical and neogothic architecture.
They like to do this in London. They build spires in the middle of the street that look like subterranean churches. I have no idea how or why they do this, but they do.
I think by demonstrating this, I'm effectively explaining why London's greenspace is so vital to its continued existence. Humans are a complex bunch. We need variety and we also need fresh air. The greenspaces are natural havens in an industrial city. And London, thanks to lessons from the early years of the Industrial Revolution, has learned very much why places where the air can purify are important. Do you guys know about peppered moths?
I didn't take this picture- the BBC did. This is a representation of the light and melanistic forms of the peppered moth. Before the Industrial Revolution, the light form was the most common, with less than one percent of moths showing melanism. But during the Industrial Revolution, the belching factory smoke stained everything dark. The melanistic moths rose in frequency until they outnumbered the light moths. This trend continued until 1962, when Britain reported the first decline of the dark moths in about a hundred years. This has happened in America as well, separately from the European moths. As well as being an excellent example of forced selection and microevolution, it's a very visible warning of the dangers of damaging the landscape with pollutants. Urban greenspace represents humanity's understanding of these issues, I think.
But, like I sorta said before, it's not just ecological issues that make greenspace so important. It's also psychological!
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| What, you didn't think you'd get out of this without being subjected to looking at gravestones, did you? |
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| I promise, though. Only two. |
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| Side note to my friend Amanda: This is the only memorial to newspaper publishers in London. |
Most of the Guildhall area squares don't follow such a rigid form, but seeing this formal garden architecture is a reminder of human impact on our landscape. This is obviously what the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths sees as relaxing and peaceful. And it is- it's a quiet space that smells nice and is partially sunken into the ground. The manicured part of the garden- the part without the graves- is essentially subterranean, separating the people who choose to use it from the main thoroughfare above. It creates this removed space for them, allowing them to detach from the business world and have a moment of tranquility. With stress being as serious a worry as it is these days, and inactivity contributing to all kinds of unwellness (including obesity and mental distress), a place to walk and hide from the world's realities must be a welcome relief.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Living History
He wasn’t supposed to feed the birds. The slick black plastic placard at the gate told him that, as did a smaller, brassy one that had a sooty blush on it from years of exposure to the London atmosphere. But he’d come to London from a small town in Canada, and they didn’t have pigeons there- at least not pigeons like these, in their millions. So he ripped off a morsel of his boxed sandwich and rolled it between his fingertips, then flicked the crumbled bits to the ground. A fat pigeon landed nearby, blinking stupidly up at him before pecking at the paving stones in the bench’s shadow and was soon joined by another and then another and then another… but the pigeons didn’t bother anybody, being little more than a part of the visual landscape. They didn’t bother the man with the Rastafarian cap and Ray-Bans, who dozed on the grass nearby, his headphones leaving him oblivious. They didn’t bother the trio of women stretched, catlike, in yoga poses and talked about circular breathing and tea-tree oil. They didn’t bother the interns near the gateway, dressed in their three-piece suits and serious, professional Guildhall mannerisms. But they delighted the young man who, having come to London, the great city of the world, could find nothing more suitable and enjoyable than taking his lunch in the open air and sharing it with pigeons. But the others didn’t notice his smile, didn’t notice his momentary pride in flaunting the rules and feeding the birds. They hardly noticed him, and why would they? They, like all people, had all come to this park, this city for their own reasons, no two alike. They came to work, came to shop, came to protest, came to tour, came to live. They were aware that others in the past had come to London for all of these reasons and more, but they didn’t really think about them. London, to them, was a right here and a right now, and would continue to be such until they left it in one way or another. Nobody stopped to think about the people of the past or of the future… but that didn’t change the fact that they were still there and still important. There wasn’t a one of them there that knew that beneath the park’s grassy turf and flagstoned paths lay hundreds and hundreds of skeletons, for Postman’s Park, nearly a yard above the current street level, was built of the disused churchyards of Old London.
It is not alone in this; London has limited space, and for it to remain current, it must understand how to incorporate the old with the new. The city of London- the boroughs and the Square Mile- is far more interconnected than one would think. Unlike the planned cities and suburbs so prevalent in the United States, London is an organic city. It’s dynamic, alive even. Its human elements cannot be ignored; people don’t just come to this city to work, they come to live, just as we have. But you miss so much if you live in a place without making the effort to understand it. In our one required course, Global London, we are given the chance to have an amazing understanding of the way the city functions as a business and as a residence. Our talented and knowledgeable instructors work as a team to give us the tools we need to engage with the city, its economy, and its residences. But other things we must discover on our own. We must teach ourselves, however we can, what it truly means to be a citizen of a global city, and this is why the history that oozes down the Portland walls of grand houses, that rises like a pea-soup fog from the last mudflats along the Thames, that seeps out from the cracks in the remaining cobblestones is so very crucial to our understanding of the city. It was this quest for understanding that led me to Postman’s Park that afternoon.
I’d gone down to Guildhall for reasons unknown. It had just been a place that I hadn’t been yet, which made it important to me.
It was a lovely place, but as I wandered around and watched the people come and go, I began to wonder what it really was. It seemed to be one of those places where you were now, or you would be later, but it didn’t really mean much on an individual level. It was a place to exist, not a place to be. So as impressive as it was, I eventually wandered away to go find a park to relax in. London, I am convinced, has the best parks in the world, and Postman’s Park is no exception.
This little one with a fountain near its gates seemed delightful; populated but not crowded, with enough places to stop and sit and relax for a while. I found a bench, sat down, rummaged through my bag for some chewing gum… and then I saw them. Rows and rows of them.
I wasn’t surprised to see them. I’m an archaeologist, after all; I find nothing frightening or even out-of-place about grave markers. But seeing them made me think once again of the people who had come to this place before me. Guildhall might have been impressive, but it was a building, its spires reaching into the sky. It had little personal connection to anybody. But each of those simple markers represented a person- sometimes two. They embodied the people of London before and of London yet to come and the man with the pigeons and the women doing yoga. They are the everyday people, and for us to understand London, we must never forget that.
In America, our cemeteries are neat and tidy. In older places, like the costal towns, we might have a true churchyard or two, but often these are paved over and forgotten, until the ground is dug into again and the lives are rediscovered. We tend to think that steel and glass are what we need- that we must constantly push to be modern and to be on the cusp. But here in London, they understand that there’s no way to hide the people that made it a global city in the first place. Many monuments might have been repurposed or lost, but the memory is immortal. We can talk all we like about gentrification and urban development, but we can’t forget who came before us. London won’t let us.
(This is a quick little photoessay that I wrote for a contest. I like the way it reads, but I wish that I could have made it longer.)
It is not alone in this; London has limited space, and for it to remain current, it must understand how to incorporate the old with the new. The city of London- the boroughs and the Square Mile- is far more interconnected than one would think. Unlike the planned cities and suburbs so prevalent in the United States, London is an organic city. It’s dynamic, alive even. Its human elements cannot be ignored; people don’t just come to this city to work, they come to live, just as we have. But you miss so much if you live in a place without making the effort to understand it. In our one required course, Global London, we are given the chance to have an amazing understanding of the way the city functions as a business and as a residence. Our talented and knowledgeable instructors work as a team to give us the tools we need to engage with the city, its economy, and its residences. But other things we must discover on our own. We must teach ourselves, however we can, what it truly means to be a citizen of a global city, and this is why the history that oozes down the Portland walls of grand houses, that rises like a pea-soup fog from the last mudflats along the Thames, that seeps out from the cracks in the remaining cobblestones is so very crucial to our understanding of the city. It was this quest for understanding that led me to Postman’s Park that afternoon.
I’d gone down to Guildhall for reasons unknown. It had just been a place that I hadn’t been yet, which made it important to me.
It was a lovely place, but as I wandered around and watched the people come and go, I began to wonder what it really was. It seemed to be one of those places where you were now, or you would be later, but it didn’t really mean much on an individual level. It was a place to exist, not a place to be. So as impressive as it was, I eventually wandered away to go find a park to relax in. London, I am convinced, has the best parks in the world, and Postman’s Park is no exception.
This little one with a fountain near its gates seemed delightful; populated but not crowded, with enough places to stop and sit and relax for a while. I found a bench, sat down, rummaged through my bag for some chewing gum… and then I saw them. Rows and rows of them.
I wasn’t surprised to see them. I’m an archaeologist, after all; I find nothing frightening or even out-of-place about grave markers. But seeing them made me think once again of the people who had come to this place before me. Guildhall might have been impressive, but it was a building, its spires reaching into the sky. It had little personal connection to anybody. But each of those simple markers represented a person- sometimes two. They embodied the people of London before and of London yet to come and the man with the pigeons and the women doing yoga. They are the everyday people, and for us to understand London, we must never forget that.
In America, our cemeteries are neat and tidy. In older places, like the costal towns, we might have a true churchyard or two, but often these are paved over and forgotten, until the ground is dug into again and the lives are rediscovered. We tend to think that steel and glass are what we need- that we must constantly push to be modern and to be on the cusp. But here in London, they understand that there’s no way to hide the people that made it a global city in the first place. Many monuments might have been repurposed or lost, but the memory is immortal. We can talk all we like about gentrification and urban development, but we can’t forget who came before us. London won’t let us.
(This is a quick little photoessay that I wrote for a contest. I like the way it reads, but I wish that I could have made it longer.)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Thesis, Schedule, and an Explanation (But Not In That Order)
So I just got the e-mail giving me the go-ahead to do my thesis.
This means that starting next year, I literally HAVE to hang out in graveyards. Oh, woe is me.
Also, I finish my degree and college requirements fall semester. I think I'm going to pick up a minor... dunno what in, though. Maybe gender studies? I think that would be a good minor for me, seeing as how marginalization is my thing.
Have I told you guys what marginalization is?
For those who don't know, it essentially means to confine to the outer limits or edge. Marginalized people are people who exist in one way or another at the edge of a society. Think of it like a fruit, like an apple or a peach or something: You have the seeds- that's the center, and (from a biological perspective) the most important part. The seeds are what makes it into the history books/grows up into a tree. It has a sort of eternal living memory- you remember "oh, this is the tree that came out of a seed." Then you have the fruit- that's the majority, the middle. You remember that part- you remember the taste, remember the scent, remember the texture- but you don't remember individual bits of it, unless there's a bruise. And it doesn't really have a commonly-held eternal memory of the individual- you remember that you ate an apple, but not that you ate lots of little fragments of apple. And then there's the peel- that's the marginalized people. They've been pushed out away from the seeds by the fruit itself. Often, they're peeled away and discarded and you simply don't think about them. Sometimes, though, one will stick out- a particularly red apple or a hairless peach. These anecdotes show up on occasion- think about Mary Read and Anne Bonny, two women pirates. We remember them, but we don't remember any others. Or think of the prostitutes Jack the Ripper killed. Generally, things happen to marginalized people- they don't do them. During their lifetime, marginalized people are generally unimportant. But after death, they become a great indicator of the values and beliefs of the society. And after all, don't we associate the concept and memory of an apple with its rosy redness?
Generally, women are one of the most prevalent groups that falls victim to marginalization, as are minority groups. Children are almost always marginalized, until they hit adulthood.
It's not a perfect metaphor, but I think it works pretty well.
But, back to that minor thing! Checking out the requirements, it's only fifteen credit hours. If they let me take Perspectives and Intro at the same time, I've already taken a crosslisted elective, I think.
And finally, here's my schedule for next year:
The schedule generator only let me put in twenty characters, so I'll explain a bit better.
Perspectives: My last requirement, Perspectives in Anthropological Analysis. It's a theory course. Normally, you take it in your first year of the major. Whooooops.
RMM:Religion, Myth, and Magic- a class about the anthropology and archaeology of spiritual beliefs.
Intermediate French: Exactly what it says on the tin.
Irish-American Tap: I think I'll get in shape much better if part of it is for a grade. Also, it's a time-honored tradition to take this course. All anthropology seniors do it, I think. It's actually an anthropology credit.
Verbal/Oral Trad.: Verbal Arts and Oral Traditions, a course on storytelling, folklore, and folksongs. I took a similar course last year by the same instructor specializing on Irish folk history, and it was really something. The final paper that I wrote for that class was a work of art.
So yeah, pretty excited about that! It's pretty finalized. Only thing that I might do is switch to an earlier French, but I think the only other section that I could take had holds on the rest of its seats. We shall see.
This means that starting next year, I literally HAVE to hang out in graveyards. Oh, woe is me.
Also, I finish my degree and college requirements fall semester. I think I'm going to pick up a minor... dunno what in, though. Maybe gender studies? I think that would be a good minor for me, seeing as how marginalization is my thing.
Have I told you guys what marginalization is?
For those who don't know, it essentially means to confine to the outer limits or edge. Marginalized people are people who exist in one way or another at the edge of a society. Think of it like a fruit, like an apple or a peach or something: You have the seeds- that's the center, and (from a biological perspective) the most important part. The seeds are what makes it into the history books/grows up into a tree. It has a sort of eternal living memory- you remember "oh, this is the tree that came out of a seed." Then you have the fruit- that's the majority, the middle. You remember that part- you remember the taste, remember the scent, remember the texture- but you don't remember individual bits of it, unless there's a bruise. And it doesn't really have a commonly-held eternal memory of the individual- you remember that you ate an apple, but not that you ate lots of little fragments of apple. And then there's the peel- that's the marginalized people. They've been pushed out away from the seeds by the fruit itself. Often, they're peeled away and discarded and you simply don't think about them. Sometimes, though, one will stick out- a particularly red apple or a hairless peach. These anecdotes show up on occasion- think about Mary Read and Anne Bonny, two women pirates. We remember them, but we don't remember any others. Or think of the prostitutes Jack the Ripper killed. Generally, things happen to marginalized people- they don't do them. During their lifetime, marginalized people are generally unimportant. But after death, they become a great indicator of the values and beliefs of the society. And after all, don't we associate the concept and memory of an apple with its rosy redness?
Generally, women are one of the most prevalent groups that falls victim to marginalization, as are minority groups. Children are almost always marginalized, until they hit adulthood.
It's not a perfect metaphor, but I think it works pretty well.
But, back to that minor thing! Checking out the requirements, it's only fifteen credit hours. If they let me take Perspectives and Intro at the same time, I've already taken a crosslisted elective, I think.
And finally, here's my schedule for next year:
Perspectives: My last requirement, Perspectives in Anthropological Analysis. It's a theory course. Normally, you take it in your first year of the major. Whooooops.
RMM:Religion, Myth, and Magic- a class about the anthropology and archaeology of spiritual beliefs.
Intermediate French: Exactly what it says on the tin.
Irish-American Tap: I think I'll get in shape much better if part of it is for a grade. Also, it's a time-honored tradition to take this course. All anthropology seniors do it, I think. It's actually an anthropology credit.
Verbal/Oral Trad.: Verbal Arts and Oral Traditions, a course on storytelling, folklore, and folksongs. I took a similar course last year by the same instructor specializing on Irish folk history, and it was really something. The final paper that I wrote for that class was a work of art.
So yeah, pretty excited about that! It's pretty finalized. Only thing that I might do is switch to an earlier French, but I think the only other section that I could take had holds on the rest of its seats. We shall see.
A Deluge of Dead Guys; or, What Do You Do With A Disused Churchyard? Part Two: Postman's Park
I've talked before about how London has limited public space. This is one of the major problems about living on an island- there's only so much space you can take up, and when you have to factor in offices, living space, restaurants, stores, schools, and all the roads you need to make a city run... well, sometimes you have to make compromises. One of these compromises is often found in the old churchyards, especially of smaller parishes.
Today, we're going to look at Postman's Park.
Postman's Park is home to the Watt's Memorial for Self-Sacrifice and exactly one female duck. It comprises the churchyards from St. Leonard's, St. Botolph's, and Christchurch in Newgate Street's graveyard, and-
"Wait! Hold on a tic," you're saying. "You're contradicting yourself. You TOLD us graveyards weren't a thing until 1842. What gives?"
Well, Christchurch in Newgate Street was a bit of a technical issue. See, Newgate is home tohellhounds a former prison. And unlike in a Dickensian debtors' prison, Newgate was prison where a large percentage of the population was hanged. Now, in the eyes of the church, if you were hanged, it was because you were a sinner. And unlike today, you could repent, but it was still unlikely that God would accept your soul, because, let's face it. If you got caught doing one bad thing, you probably did lots of them. And you can't bury a long-term sinner in consecrated ground! The idea was that the bodies in the churchyards would be uncorrupted by the bodies of these long-term sinners. Prisons often had their own graveyards, where bodies were just thrown into pits or shallow graves. These were typically left unmarked; however, careful records were kept in the prison. Newgate had several graveyards attached to local churches. The priests of these churches would visit the prisoners before their executions, hear their confessions, and offer them communion one final time. It wasn't uncommon for these churches to donate a parcel of their churchyard to be used for criminals, conveniently located on the other side of the fence. This particular parcel abutted the graveyards of two churches, one of which no longer exists (St. Botolph's and Christchurch, Newgate are still around.)
Postman's Park is home to hundreds of burials. Would you like to know how many?
I'll tell you this: Postman's Park is elevated quite a bit above the current street level because there were so many bodies and so little space, often they'd just lay the bodies on the ground and pile dirt on them. And people wonder where these black dog legends come from...
Nowadays, though, you wouldn't know that. The churchyards sat reeking until 1858, when it was decided to turn them into a public park. They didn't want to get rid of all of the gravestones, though, so while they developed the park, they disinterred many of the upper level burials, shipped them out to various other cemeteries, and then moved the headstones to the walls to mark the boundary of the new park. Check it out:
The park didn't actually open until 1880, due to the difficulties of development. Imagining digging a pond for a fountain and turning up a femur every five minutes.
(Side note: The park also housed one female duck, who was quite upset that I was standing near her fountain.)
While this grave was very difficult to read, it was obviously judged too difficult to remove. It's important to notice that there are no ornate headstones here- there's hardly anything that isn't a flat stone or a ground slab, other than this...
And this. This stone has a marble vase on top that was clearly added long after the stone's erection- possibly to jazz it up.
Can you spot the hidden gravestones?
The park, as I said, also houses an interesting memorial to heroic self-sacrifice. This was put up in 1900 and is dedicated to average, everyday people who gave their lives for others. Many are teenagers.
However, none of them are buried in the park, obviously. I took the below picture to show you an example of the patterns of gravestones and to show you how they are used as decorative objects.
This one is particularly interesting in that it's a double gravestone for a man and a woman where the woman's first name is mentioned on the stone. She died in 1772, long before this sort of thing came into real fashion.
While this gravestone is rather forward-thinking and rather prominently displayed, I wondered if I could find any evidence of marginalization in this incredibly disturbed burial site. A quick peek 'round the corner kinda proved that I could. Here are some small, poor-quality stones that have evidence of engraving on them, being used to hold a ladder and garbage. Anonymous in death and unimportant in posterity, it is unlikely that these were the gravestones of any high-ranking member of society. Perhaps these were used for poor parishioners... or perhaps the children of poor parishioners.
In stark contrast, we have this memorial, found right outside the park, built into the wall.
I like this picture for several reasons. One, it shows you just how high off street level the ground of Postman's Park is- that bowl is at chest level. Two, that's a gravestone and formerly a working fountain. And not just any gravestone, oh no- this was specifically for a married woman (not for her husband, who presumably is elsewhere) who was very wealthy and apparently very involved with the local council. I'll tell you a bit more about who she is in a later post, when I explain why the tried-and-true technique of taking a rubbing is actually kind of worthless sometimes.
So that's it for Postman's Park! Pay attention for next time, when I talk about St. Olaf the Pirate King and terrible rubbings!
Today, we're going to look at Postman's Park.
Postman's Park is home to the Watt's Memorial for Self-Sacrifice and exactly one female duck. It comprises the churchyards from St. Leonard's, St. Botolph's, and Christchurch in Newgate Street's graveyard, and-
"Wait! Hold on a tic," you're saying. "You're contradicting yourself. You TOLD us graveyards weren't a thing until 1842. What gives?"
Well, Christchurch in Newgate Street was a bit of a technical issue. See, Newgate is home to
Postman's Park is home to hundreds of burials. Would you like to know how many?
I'll tell you this: Postman's Park is elevated quite a bit above the current street level because there were so many bodies and so little space, often they'd just lay the bodies on the ground and pile dirt on them. And people wonder where these black dog legends come from...
Nowadays, though, you wouldn't know that. The churchyards sat reeking until 1858, when it was decided to turn them into a public park. They didn't want to get rid of all of the gravestones, though, so while they developed the park, they disinterred many of the upper level burials, shipped them out to various other cemeteries, and then moved the headstones to the walls to mark the boundary of the new park. Check it out:
The park didn't actually open until 1880, due to the difficulties of development. Imagining digging a pond for a fountain and turning up a femur every five minutes.
(Side note: The park also housed one female duck, who was quite upset that I was standing near her fountain.)
While this grave was very difficult to read, it was obviously judged too difficult to remove. It's important to notice that there are no ornate headstones here- there's hardly anything that isn't a flat stone or a ground slab, other than this...
And this. This stone has a marble vase on top that was clearly added long after the stone's erection- possibly to jazz it up.
The difference of material and construction is obvious; it doesn't match. Normally, ornamental gravestones were constructed of the same thing, occasionally including an accent stone. The carving's weathering has some serious differential weathering, too- while you can't read the gravestone itself, take a look at the detail on the vase.
This is one that they are clearly maintaining; they've added a modern attachment to the vase and are somehow keeping it drained.
Can you spot the hidden gravestones?
 | |
The park, as I said, also houses an interesting memorial to heroic self-sacrifice. This was put up in 1900 and is dedicated to average, everyday people who gave their lives for others. Many are teenagers.
However, none of them are buried in the park, obviously. I took the below picture to show you an example of the patterns of gravestones and to show you how they are used as decorative objects.
This one is particularly interesting in that it's a double gravestone for a man and a woman where the woman's first name is mentioned on the stone. She died in 1772, long before this sort of thing came into real fashion.
 |
| Mrs. Eleanor Lovell. |
 |
I like this picture for several reasons. One, it shows you just how high off street level the ground of Postman's Park is- that bowl is at chest level. Two, that's a gravestone and formerly a working fountain. And not just any gravestone, oh no- this was specifically for a married woman (not for her husband, who presumably is elsewhere) who was very wealthy and apparently very involved with the local council. I'll tell you a bit more about who she is in a later post, when I explain why the tried-and-true technique of taking a rubbing is actually kind of worthless sometimes.
So that's it for Postman's Park! Pay attention for next time, when I talk about St. Olaf the Pirate King and terrible rubbings!
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