RIP
Material Culture and Spaces of Remembrance.
A Study of Cemeteries in Luxembourg in the Context of the Greater Region
Graves and grave finds are among the most important sources of historical and archaeological information. Occasionally, regarding certain ancient cultures, these can even be the only reliable sources.
Paradoxically, however, modern ‘living’ cemeteries are often even less-known than older ones when tombs from an earlier time are abandoned and destroyed, and new ones are constructed in their place, rendering the continual scientific documentation of graveyards from their origins up to the present day highly challenging.
This research project, financed by the FNR, has developed new survey tools and interdisciplinary methodology to investigate the material culture of cemeteries, as well as related cultural practices, in the present, past and future. It combines spatial analysis to map current states of cemeteries, archival studies to reconstructing past practices and explores future trends, based on expert and ethnographical interviews.