A rock-cut tomb is a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture. They are usually cut into a cliff or sloping rock face, but may go downward in fairly flat ground. It was a common form of burial for the wealthy in ancient times in several parts of the world.
4th century BC, Demre, Turkey
Forerunner of the cemetery. After settling down, permanent family burial sites were built; in Egypt and ancient Greece the burial sites were mostly outside the settlements and were also venerated early on; rock tombs and caves were preferred in Israel; in Athens and Rome there were private family graves as well as community graves at the gates of the cities on the arteries.
In most cultures, Necropolis appeared outside of settlements without typical forms having emerged. Their location depended on the nature of the terrain, sacred concepts and representational intentions. Some necropolises have areas for groups, such as honorary citizens or freedmen. Following religious ideas, the individual grave structures often have a western orientation. When polis communities (8th century BC) and sacred thoughts of purity emerged in Greece, the dead were given separate areas outside and often west of the city. Since these necropolises were mostly on arterial roads and processional roads, they were integrated into public life and self-portrayal of the poleis (Athens, Kerameikos).
4th century BC, Kerameikos, Athens, Greece
Temple, Necropolis and Agora embodied the three types of common rooms assigned to the gods, the dead and the zoon politikon. In Etruria from the 6th century onwards, due to the increase in population, necropolises often formed a ring around the settlements. In the south, the isolated Tumuli, cubic row grave structures on orthogonal grave roads of equal rank gave way (Orvieto, Crocifisso-N.).
Crocifisso del Tufo, Etruscan necropolis in Orvieto, Umbria, Italy
In this way, a type of urban development (Hippodamos) that was already documented in Greece was transferred to the necropolises. Roman necropolises were also located extramurally on busy arterial roads (Via Triumphalis and Via Appia, Rome). Temples and services for travelers and funerals often stood between the graves. During the power struggles of the civil war in the 1st century BC The type of grave road matured: the buildings now stood facing the street and in a line of alignment directly on its edge. A grave at a gate or at a heavily frequented fork in the road was considered particularly prestigious; The aim was at least a place on the main street. This resulted in long grave roads (Via Appia).
The representation gave way to a retreat into the private sphere, and the image of the N. changed: the addition of competing solitaires now became urban ensembles of simple grave structures. So the number of buildings that condensed into closed street fronts increased - partly on standardized plots (Necropolis on Via Laurentina, Ostia).
Via Laurentina, Ostia, Rome, Italy
Further rows, also oriented on the main street, were built in the depths near the city. Since there were only a few paths through the necropolis, usually parallel to the main street, the rear graves were often only accessible via paths and were so closely spaced that the facades were no longer visible. The development finally led back to a loose arrangement of the buildings, which moved away from the street and were on dead ends or quasi private paths.
The Christians buried their dead first in the open field or in niches, then in Arcosoliums in the underground catacombs in Rome (Domitilla, Flaviergalerie, Marcellino e Pietro, Priscilla), as well as in Naples, Syracuse, Malta or Alexandria.
2nd century AC, Catacombs of Priscilla with Arcosoliums, Rome, Italy
In connection with the cults of martyrs, the Christians increasingly buried their dead near churches (ad sanctos), which gave rise to the type and name of the cemetery: a protected, mostly walled courtyard a church in whose earth the dead are arranged in a grid, often from Stone covered graves are buried. The cemetery should give protection to the living and peace to the dead. With the lifting of the ban on the burial of the dead within the cities under Emperor Leo I (457-474), the peripheral location of the cemeteries shifted to the settlement centers, where they have a central position with the church, as can still be seen in villages today.
12th century AC, Mass Grave Holy Innocents' Cemetery, Paris, Framce
The Christian cemeteries of the Middle Ages experienced a variety of architectural forms, such as the destroyed Mass cemetery at the Church of the Innocents in Paris, with its 80 arched arcades, galleries; Funerary chapels, ossuary.
GRAVE SLABS IN CHURCH FLOOR
For privileged Christians from the nobility or clergy, despite the prohibitions, the burial took place, preferably inside the churches or adjacent buildings, so that their floors served as a cemetery and can consist of grave slabs throughout (St. Bavo, Haarlem; Cathedral cloister, Regensburg).
In ltaly, the special form of the structurally independent cemetery developed as the so-called Campo Santo ("holy field")
The Campo Santo in Pisa by G. di Simone (1278-83) forms an elongated, rectangular courtyard which, strictly enclosed on the outside, is bordered by inwardly open semicircular canals. The inner walls of the corridor covered by a circumferential gable roof with an open roof structure were decorated with frescoes of the triumph of death (around 1400 - a model for P. Cornelius' designs for the painting of the F. project for the Berlin Cathedral, 1845). The shape of the Campo Santo in the form of a freestanding ► cloister also influenced numerous cemeteries in the north (Stadtgottesacker, Halle ad S., 1594, NH Hofmann)
1594, Stadtgottesacker, Halle an der Saale, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany
Today, in the Mediterranean area, large open-air wall passages, in the walls of which there are compartments for coffins or urns on several floors, characterize the cemeteries (cemetery island S. Michele, Venice).
1807, Cemetery island S. Michele, Venice, Italy
1883, Montjuïc Cemetery, Barcelona, Spain
The relocation of cemeteries from the villages began again in the 15th century, which has increased since the 18th century for hygienic reasons (field burials). These cemeteries have their own, often dedicated to St. Cemetery chapels consecrated to Michael as a »soul guide«. The furnishing of the cemeteries was generally not very distinctive beyond these chapels, the ossuary or the massive surrounding wall, in contrast to this, however, the private grave monuments erected in them could have considerable representative design variants of architectural, sculptural and handcrafted nature, which reached their peak in late historicism (Pere Lachaise, Paris, from 1804, AT Brongniart).
1804, Pere Lachaise, Paris, France
PARK AND FORREST CEMETERIES
Well-known cemeteries are the Johannis cemetery in Nuremberg (from 1518) and the Vienna Central Cemetery (from 1874).
1874, Vienna Central Cemetery, Vienna, Austria
In the 20th century, more and more park-like cemeteries were created, for which the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf cemetery (from 1877) was type-defining (Wald-Friedhof, Munich, from 1907; Hanover-Seelhorst, 1920; Friedhof am Hörnli, Basel, 1932).
1877, Hamburg-Ohlsdorf cemetery, Hamburg, Germany
1907, Wald-Friedhof, Munich, Germany
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