Publication detail

Funeral Rituals and Cemeteries in Europe

ADAMEC, E.

Original Title

Funeral Rituals and Cemeteries in Europe

Type

journal article in Scopus

Language

English

Original Abstract

Funeral rituals reflect our culture. The paper deals with perception of rituals and cemeteries, the anonymous survey was conducted to start a dialogue about ritual in : Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Questions were created on the background of practices and knowledge from history. The opened answers showed attitudes to rituals and cemeteries in today’s society. ... The meaning of the word ritual is broad, for this work was meant the religious one, few definitions of ritual are given by (Nelson-Becker, Sangster, 2018). In Europe the religion rituals and cemeteries are closely connected with Christianity, but rituals and graves are characteristic for any religion and culture. The first and maybe the most important question is, if any ritual is necessary in a human life ? According to the French ethnologist Arnold van Gennep it is : “Every change in the situation of an individual includes actions and reactions between the profane and the sacred, actions and reactions which must be regulated and monitored so that the general society does not experience embarrassment or shame. This is the very reality of life which requires successive passages from one particular society to another and from one social situation to another” (Gennep, 1909). The passage was not only performed during the ceremony but was articulated by architecture as well. From the earliest funeral structures in Europe can be mentioned Dolmens (Figure 1), for example in Carnac (Lauda, 1946), where the corridor took place before the funeral chamber. Another type of later graves were Tumuli, they were used by few cultures, for example by Celts. Their graves were hidden, looking like a small natural hill, but there were single or multiple graves inside, after a long corridor. Next to the tomb of Celtic Prince of Glauberk in Germany there was a life-size statue of himself made of sandstone, armed with a wooden shield, tunic and a typical La Tén sword (Herrmann, Frey, 1996)…

Keywords

Ritual; Passage; Cemetery; Funeral;

Authors

ADAMEC, E.

Released

15. 6. 2021

Publisher

Études sur la mort; Revue de la Société de thanatologie

Location

Paris

ISBN

1286-5702

Periodical

Etudes sur la Mort

Year of study

2021/2

Number

156

State

French Republic

Pages from

165

Pages to

184

Pages count

19

URL

https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-sur-la-mort-2021-2-page-165.htm

BibTex

@article{BUT180132,
  author="Ivona {Dlábiková} and Martina {Peřinková} and Emil {Adamec} and Filip {Slivka}",
  title="Funeral Rituals and Cemeteries in Europe",
  journal="Etudes sur la Mort",
  year="2021",
  volume="2021/2",
  number="156",
  pages="165--184",
  doi="10.3917/eslm.156.0165",
  issn="1286-5702",
  url="https://www.cairn.info/revue-etudes-sur-la-mort-2021-2-page-165.htm"
}