Monument Analysis: What makes you 'unique' after death?

For our Monument analysis project my group went to the Ross Bay cemetery. Our research question that we went into the cemetery with was the question: What makes a grave stand out? Is there a progression of change as time moves on? We also wanted to look into what the motivation behind a grave like that, and would it have been the family or the deceased choice to have such an incredible grave?

The graves we chose were relatively scattered throughout the cemetery, only a few clusters of the graves. We marked down on our map what the graves looked like and what made them unique. Of course because of the size of Ross Bay cemetery, we had to limit our dataset to only 11 graves. While there are many more unique and outstanding graves in the cemetery, our choices I believe create a varied sample of the types of graves in the cemetery. 

Our whole group went to the cemetery and studied each grave together. We looked at size, description, art, style, and materials used. To me the grave that stood out the most was the Anchor grave. 

Schultz and Sims. "Faith, Love and Hope."

This was a plot for two young women that had their names on small plaques on opposite corners of a large anchor. The plot was covered with a green vine or plant, that was very well maintained. The anchor itself, after close inspection, looks to be a real anchor that has been painted many times and is not just a sculpture for this grave. It also contains two stones, one with a Cross carved into it, and one with "Faith, Love and Hope," with the carvings of a cross, a heart and an anchor. This stood out in the whole grave yard because it wasn't a stone. It was a large anchor that was viewable from all sides and you could see it from far away. It was easily identifiable as this grave, and I'm sure there isn't another one similar to it at the cemetery. 

Over-all I found that what mattered the most to what made a grave stand out was the context in which it was placed. So even though I did find that the change in grave style happened over time, there is still a sense that within the more modern graves the ones we chose are the ones that stand out within their areas. Since the cemetery is grouped off into different religious affiliations, and times, it was within each of these areas that we looked for differences. While one grave may have looked unique and significant within it's surroundings, if we were to have seen it in a different section of the cemetery it may not have been the same reaction. The first grave we looked at stood out because it was a grave for a small child and the stone itself was very small and not associated with any family. 

Verna M.

It was also an interesting because it was more like a sculpture than a grave stone. However had we seen this near the other child grave that we looked at which had stuffed animals and a little garden in front of it, it may not have been so remarkable. But in the area it was in, it was significantly smaller and less grandiose, as well most graves in that area were either included with family or were beside family. 

I believe that we were also influenced by our own culture, and were looking at the graves with a familiarity with the simple grave stone or the mausoleum. At least that is what I expected going into the cemetery. Even the ones with the beautiful carvings or large plots associated with them stood out to me since in my mind when I think of a grave I think of the typical flat stone on a single grave. Personal biases definitely made some of the graves stand out in my mind. For instance in the area where we found some of the most recent graves, so many of them stood out to me. There was a lot of unique graves that were not what I imagined a grave to be like. For instance the "Ross" grave included a headstone and an engraved table, between them was planted a tree and surrounding both were flowers. 

Ross. Table on one side and Headstone on the other.

This does not in my mind signify a grave, so much so that I'm sure if it weren't within the context of a cemetery I would not think it was an actual grave, but more like a memorial. Why I have made this distinction in my mind, I'm not sure. As if burials are saved for the cemetery and not for the rest of the world. 

Another cultural distinction made was on one of the last graves that we looked at. This was actually the grave that made me realize that we were really just looking at the graves that stood out within their context. We were in the Roman Catholic area, and all the graves were evenly plotted and all had a fairly similar design, and all that I could see were facing West. This made the 'Bermarija," grave stand out here.

Bermarja.

 While it still followed the similar size and faced the West as well, it was covered with a large black granite slab over the grave itself and the headstone was black granite as well. The inscriptions were painted white and written in Croatian. It also contained two inlaid pictures of the deceased husband and wife. I didn't see any other graves like this one (although I was informed that there were a couple that had pictures inlaid in them as well) and the pictures more than anything else made them stand out quite a bit. That mixed with the black granite slabs reminded me of the article by Garazhian and Papoli Yazdi, about how the grave decoration changed in Bam after the earthquake. This contained similar characteristics with the photos of the deceased and the slabs over the graves. What made it stand out to me was how very different it was to most of the other graves in the cemetery, and it is clear that it is purely a different culture with different religious practices regarding the deceased. Now I am more curious about that culture and even economic status, whether this is standard or spectacular. However had I not known about the tradition, it would have made this grave stand out for a different reason. I would not be wondering about potential economic status and culture, but perhaps why their grave was important. The difference that makes it stand out would perhaps have lead me to a different conclusion about the reasons behind the style of grave. Coming back to the idea that our choices were coloured by our culture. 

What made these graves stand out to us was not the fact that they were all entirely unique and never been done before, but that they made an impression in their area. They stood out within their own culture or religion and that is what made them significant. 

The most interesting question that we came up with, we can't necessarily answer within this type of project. Were it a more in-depth project where our data could include interviews with possible family members or research into personal records or newspaper obituaries we would be able to go into the reasoning behind the choices of graves. Who made the choice? Was it a choice made with the deceased prior to death? Or was it the family honouring a loved one in a spectacular way? Or maybe even the community choosing to honour an outstanding community member? This is the aspect of our project that we could not answer, no matter how much time with the graves we spent.

View A Selection of Unique Graves in Ross Bay Cemetery in a larger map



Garazhian, O & Papoli Yazdi, L 2008, 'Mortuary Practices in Bam after the Earthquake: An Ethnoarchaeological study', Journal of Social Archaeology, vol. 8, no.1, pp.94-112.