many extant funeral monuments and crypts are still in use. A palatial chapel or a monumental cathedral are often the traditional burial site of the royalty or persons of highly noble lineage.
Identification of the burial site
Present day customs require that the site of burial is marked with a headstone for two purposes. Firstly, it ensures that the grave would not be tampered and the body exhumed. Secondly, the headstones pay tributes to the dead and contain particulars useful for the remembrance of the departed. Especially, for the famous it brings in a whiff of immortality, which genealogists and family historians find quite useful later.
Then, in many cultures graves or monuments are grouped, forming a necropolis or the “city of the dead” as an adjunct to the city of the living.
To identify the burial site of the unknown or the anonymous, a variety of markers such as a simple crucifix, boots, rifle and helmet; sword and shield; a pile of stones or sometimes even a monument are used. The battle gears are meant for the fallen heroes, soldiers and warriors who lost their lives in battles. Actually, the phrase potter’s field is used to mean the burial site of paupers and strangers in a historical sense. It is believed that the musical prodigy and genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was buried in this manner because of his poverty. Normally, burial in a potter’s field is carried out when proper identification of the deceased is impossible, but the site is memorialized in smaller communities or where the death was announced in local media.
As a mark of respect to the fallen warriors, nearly every country has the burial site of an unknown soldier in a prominent location of their
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21