Sons of a Lesser God? Social Differentiation in Urban and Rural 19th and 20th Century Cemeteries.

Summary

In 1835, a law in Portugal forced every city and village to build cemeteries with well-defined characteristics: a walled place had to be able to have large tombs, permanent graves, and temporary graves. Nine years later it became mandatory to bury the deceased in a cemetery and church burials were forbidden, thus many cemeteries were built in the mid-19th century, either in large urban centers or in small rural areas. Considering these differences this paper aims to analyze several cemeteries in different areas of the country, some of them with a strong cultural identity, comparing large and small burial grounds and discussing if social representation and cultural behaviors regarding funeral rites and tombs can be related to urban and/or rural identity and how major superstructures such as religion would influence such behaviors towards death.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow