Burial Customs

I posted last year about the cemetery, and was focused on what looks different at first glance, which was the photographs on the tombs.  They still fascinate me.  Phil says he's seen similar things in a few American cemeteries, but I can't think that I have.  I am always drawn to the things that make the inhabitants real:  inscriptions, names, relationships between gravestones (family groupings).    These photographs make the inhabitants real for sure.  I've not spent enough time to figure out if the photos are always from close to when the person died or if one chooses how to remember the person.  Some show photos of old people, others of young people.  I need to go check to see if the young ones are always people who died young.  But Greek gravestones don't always have the date of birth, so it may be hard to find the pattern.

The other thing I was thinking about is order vs. chaos.  Too many newer American cemeteries seem to be about imposing order on the ultimate chaos of death.  Neat rows of identical grave markers, carefully trimmed grass... Whereas here (and maybe it is in part because it is an old cemetery) there is a riot of different styles of architecture, statuary, and levels of upkeep.  A friend asked if I was studying sculpture when I mentioned I was going to the Protonekrotafeio with students... apparently famous sculptors have done funeral art as well as art-art.  So there is much more individual expression in the grave markers, but then the bones are mingled with those of the community, while in the US, we leave the bones alone (maybe simply because we have space) where they stay in their individual marked spaces, but the markers are identical.  In both cases there seems to be an expression of individuality and community, though in different ways.

The jasmine growing on the side here reminds me of a story of a red and white rosebush growing over a pair of star-crossed lovers' tomb.

Photograph and candle

 I love that in this cemetery there is so much living plant life.  This one is almost hidden in plants.

Audrey Hepburn?

These photos are of people who lived full lives, not of young people.

 Other graves seem to simply be neglected.  I would have thought with the shortage of space, there would be some rule about keeping the plant life under control or lose the right to the spot, like an American gated community with standards for length of grass and type of plant grown...but apparently not!

This vault was open.  It looks like perhaps this is the family ossuary?  I need to go eyeball the size of the vault to see if the spaces at the back are small for the decomposed bones, while the ones on the sides are larger for newer occupants?  This one is getting full....only one space left.  But it was neglected and open, so maybe it won't fill?