Talk:Cemetery

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Ossuaries

The article states that from the 7th to the late 18th century, in Europe, bodies were buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were then exhumed and stored in ossuaries. I am not aware of this practice being the normal practice in England. Certainly there are many examples of individual and family graves that date back to the mediaeval period, but I've never seen an English ossuary! Bluewave 08:25, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

According to the BBC at least one such ossuary exists in England. "In Britain the practice is unusual although Holy Trinity Church in Rothwell near Northampton has an ossuary in its crypt.[1]" Rainman420 07:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Morbid

It's a rather morbid thought, but does Wikipedia have a graveyard? There are rather a lot of us editors out there, and sooner or later we'll all be joining the "choir invisible" (statistically it must happen relatively frequently). Has there been any movement to create a virtual graveyard for editors forced through circumstances outside their control to confine their edits (or not) to the "Wikicrypt"? Personally, I'm in rude health, but the thought just occurred to me that there might be a need for such a place. That, and I imagine there'll be some quality comedy tombstone inscriptions. --Plumbago 15:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yo, I was touring a cemetary today and thinking the same thing… in general, people don't put that much creativity into inscriptions, and I doubt they'd suddenly do so much more just because of the existence of wiki software. But yeah, same idea, so weird… — $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 21:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Cemetery vs. Graveyard

I was in Boston, visiting Ben Franklin's grave, and the guide introduced me to the distinction between graveyard and cemetery, but I forgot what it was. Looking at this page, it seems that a cemetery is NOT attached to a church, while a graveyard is. If this is the case, it seems that perhaps Graveyard should have its own page, rather than redirecting here. Actually, it seems to me that a graveyard should really be a form of cemetery (or vice versa) or there should be another word that includes both, but I am not in charge of the language. I am also not the person to write a page on graveyards, as I know little about the issue, so I am putting a comment here.--Chinawhitecotton 19:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that you were visiting Ben Franklin's grave in Boston--Ben Franklin, of course, was from Pennsylvania and was burried there. More to the point, though: if you know which cemetary you were in (Perhaps by King's Chapel on Tremont or on the other side of the street where John Hancock et. al. are burried?) I could take a look and upload a picture. Billiam1185 (talk) 03:35, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Graveyard as seperate entry

A cemetery, a graveyard and a churchyard are often confused with eachother and many people think they are the same thing or very similiar to eachother. In reality, they are 3 completely seperate things with 3 different definitions. This is why I haved expanded 3 seperate wiki articles. Amorfati00 20:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You did not include any references with your statements. Every dictionary (two below and 7 online) that I have checked placed cemeteries and graveyards as synonymous with one another.

Examples:

1. Websters New Thesaurus
   1. graveyard n syn SEE cemetery
   2. cemetery n a piece of land used for burying the dead syn boneyard, boothill, burial ground, burying ground, God's acre, graveyard, memorial park, necropolis, polyandrium, potter's field rel churchyard, catacomb idiom city of the dead
2. The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus
   1. graveyard n burial ground syn churchyard, cemetery, potter's field, boneyard
   2. cemetery n burial ground SEE graveyard

In order for these statements to remain in the articles they need to have verifiable references.Altairisfar 06:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• As I understand it, graveyard ("yard") is a tract of land used for burials. Cemeteries can be below ground (e.g., catacombs) and at ground level (e.g. "yard" as in graveyard/cemetery). Burial at sea and Space burial don't seem to bring up the issue of cemetery. Bebestbe (talk) 18:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I was told the distinction was that a graveyard in the churchyard (next to a church), where a cemetery is on it's own. Quick search seems to say similar.[2][3][4] I don't think a separate article is appropriate, but the distinction should be mentioned, perhaps in the lead where we say they are used interchangeably. Morphh ^(talk) 22:49, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven

Isn't the Grove Street Cemetery older than the famous paris cemetery. The article claims the latter is the oldest, but I think that is incorrect. I'm not an expert, though.

97.81.97.220 03:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

spagnolo

&cementerio; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.201.1.162 (talk) 05:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Environmental strain

Perhaps a section can state the environmental strain of cemeteries. For example they take up ever more space (in a more and more filling world and clogging cities) and they consume a lot of resources and eliminate resources from being used circularly (wood and iron for coffins get buried -which is wasteful-) and the minerals, ... of the bodies are not given back to the earth (thus to crops which allow other people -living ones- of feeding themselves) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.175.118 (talk) 15:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Definition"?

The "definition" section, dealing ONLY with "churchyard," is not only out of place where it occurs, but has nothing to do with the definition of "cemetery." It should be removed. 70.153.159.70 (talk) 15:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I have put in the OED definition for cemetery. --PBS (talk) 10:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The definitions of graveyard and cemetery are more or less the same.71.219.129.1 (talk) 22:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

External Links

I have removed the ever expanding list of ELs. It seems to have become a place for IPs to come and add their home brew genealogical web site to. Without any reference from the article text or sources to establish noteworthiness of these sites, they fall into links to be avoided. I am putting them here so any that have merit can be discussed and re-added under consensus...

• New Horizons Genealogy - specializing in the early (pre 1940) New York Cemetery Records and Revolutionary War soldier burials.
• Brookwood Military Cemeteries – Images of all sections of the military cemetery and burial plots and memorials. Includes allied nationals, Chelsea Pensioners, QA Nurses as well as German and Italian plots.
• Cemetery Photos
• Official web presentation of Slovakian cemeteries - This web presentation enables you to find a decedent of yours who has died in Slovak Republic. Also, you can enlighten a candle to remember on his virtual grave.
• Hale Collection - Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions.
• Los Naguales - Contains great images about the most famous cemetery in the north of Argentina.
• Find-a-Grave - Online virtual cemetery with photos, biographies, and virtual flowers. Includes index of famous and historical figures' burial information and grave images.
• Dust To Dust - Photos of several English cemeteries and churchyards.
• Grave Addiction - Contains photos of many cemeteries throughout the United States.
• London Cemetery Project: 130 cemeteries with high- quality photos.
• A Very Grave Matter - Contains many photos from cemeteries from the east coast of the United States.
• Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols - Explores the meaning of cemetery symbols.
• Written in Stone - Burial locations of literary figures.
• Indian Cemeteries
• Slide show of Jewish Cemetery
• Legacy of the Rural Cemetery Movement in America, a collection of 100 evocative cemetery photographs by Hope College Professor William Pannapacker
• HeadStones Genealogy - Photographs of the cemeteries and their headstones with a search data base.
• Boville Ernica(FR)'s cemetery, the first one in Italy on internet.
• [5] - Cemetery and culture in southeast GA

Mfield (Oi!) 21:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Brookwood Military Cemetery link. The cemetery and web-site shows graves representing a very wide range of nationalities, creeds and religions under the CWGC banner of "no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or creed". The site shows a range of headstones and memorials in this cemetery unique in having two cross of sacrifice and two war stones. The cemetery continues in use today for casualties of modern warfare and for Chelsea Pensioners. It also has a section maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The link adds information about military cemeteries following on similar sections about specialist cemeteries. There is no pecuniary advantage to me in featuring this site which is designed as a resource. The site provides a resource beyond that of the article, is not promotional, does not sell products or services, does not carry advertising, does not require payment to view, works with awide rnge of browsers, is not a link to search engines rsults, does not link to social networking or blogs, manufacturers, suppliers or customers and is reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wyrdlight (talk • contribs) 22:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

/* Maintenance and mourning */

The proliferation of the word "might" is somewhat irksome, so I added the NPOV template. - Dudesleeper talk 19:27, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Needs more reliable links

I need more reliable links to prove each section of the subject [ Farizluqman (talk) 06:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC) ]

Ecological impact

Nowhere is it mentioned that cemetaries take up allot of usable space (often near or even within cities) hence causing extra traffic, housing problems, parking problems, ...

Also include a section on the ecofriendliness (or lack thereof) of the construction of the burial sites (especially regarding the coffins, which often contain with non-organicly decomposable materials. Mention coffins as the http://www.ecopod.co.uk/ as an alternative 91.182.214.100 (talk) 11:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

If you can find reliable sources that show cemeteries take up a lot of usable space then you can add it but while cemeteries do take up space that cities can use for residential and commercial uses (as a rule, most cemeteries were placed a mile or two outside the city and the city grew toward the cemetery) you'd be hard-pressed to find a source specifically saying cemeteries are a cause of extra traffic, housing problems and parking problems. The lack of land is the reason a lot of cemeteries in cities are moving toward using ossuary-type burials. As for the ecopod and other eco-friendly coffins, it can be added but it may be seen as an advertisement by other editors so you may want to find another third-party source to cover your bases. Bhall87^{Four Score}_{and Seven} 05:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Sustainability?

Hello, I was surprised not to see a section on sustainability. Excuse my ignorance, but are tomb spaces reused over time, at least in some countries? If not, given that the world population is growing dramatically, how are we ever going to cope? Can people choose sustainable "disposal" of their bodies after death? I don't know, the good old "pushing up daisies" thing? I'd love to be composted! I know this is not a forum, but I would appreciate some pointers. I may be able to contribute after some research. Thanks! 219.73.122.181 (talk) 15:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

See Natural burial. Boneyard90 (talk) 16:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Link?

Is it normal that the word CemeNtery links to this article and not a cement plant? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetrusMa (talk • contribs) 08:31, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Looks like, yes. A Google search shows "Cementery" is a misspelled or even corrupted version of cemetery and is not related to cement at all. Bhall87^{Four Score}_{and Seven} 15:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV

I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:

1. There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
2. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
3. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:39, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Do we really need two different articles on what are essentially the same articles? Most people use cemetery and graveyard interchangeably. Both articles seem to have largely the same content as it is. As far as the distinction between the two and church yard, most churches that I know of that have graveyards officially call them cemeteries. Jgera5 (talk) 19:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

1. Support.Babakathy (talk) 05:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

UPDATE Since there was virtually no discussions on the issue at hand for nearly two months, I went ahead and redirected the graveyard article to cemetery. A true merger wasn't really necessary, since both had basically the exact same content. Jgera5 (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It would be much better to make comment at least WikiProject Death talk page where there might be a few editors with that talk on their watch compared to here - single article merge proposal notices are no brainers... try at least one or more project talk pages satusuro 22:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As far as the distinction between the two and church yard, most churches that I know of that have graveyards officially call them cemeteries - is a serious problem - this is an online encyclopedia, and across cultures - I see no reason to try one analogy for where very different cultures and continetnts have graveyards and cemeteries which have nothing whatsoever to do with 'church yards' satusuro 22:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Also if you had taken the time and troubleto read the earlier comments on this tslk psger about the issue, you would see how some would not agree wirth your merge in any way - please do not take advantage of quiet talk pages in that way satusuro 22:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• very poor action, I note that neither merge proposal carried an edit summary indicating the existance of a merger proposal and that the merger proposal was was malformed as such generated no substantive discussion. The closer was the same person who proposed the merge, the person should have asked for someone else to close the merge an also while there is information in common the two articles had substantive differences and different sourcing and actual merge should take place but only after the copyright issues of this article first been addressed. Suggest reversal and creation of a proper formed proposal as there are comments on both talk that discuss the differences and the validity of separate articles. Gnangarra 06:36, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

cemetery:
1. A place used for burials; especially a usually large area of public ground belonging to a town, city, etc., and laid out for the interment of the dead.
2. A churchyard [obsolete since early 19th century]

graveyard:

A burial ground

Note that definition 2 of cemetery ("a churchyard") is obsolete. The remaining definitions don't jump out as being radically different.

Could someone describe reasonably concisely what the difference is between a graveyard and a cemetery, that would required separate articles? Mitch Ames (talk) 13:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that Cemeteries are multi denominational either private or Government run locations. Where as graveyards are religion specific and operated in accordance to the traditions of that religion and generally are part of a larger complex associated with that religion, ie church & graveyard. Gnangarra 01:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Copyvio

Created a fixed version at Talk:Cemetery/Temp.Noodleki (talk) 16:23, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Could an administrator please attend to the Investigation of potential copyright issue, the article has been blanked for two months now. {Fixed version at Talk:Cemetery/Temp.Noodleki (talk) 20:58, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Cemetery types

I wonder if we could use pictures that better illustrate the differences between cemetery types mentioned in this section.

Billiam1185 (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

"Burial Ground"

The usage and primary topic of Burial Ground is under discussion, see talk:Burial Ground (Grave album) -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 05:48, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Problem with the lead

...but a graveyard primarily refers to a burial ground within a churchyard.

I don't want to do Original Research, but I think this statement in the opening is incorrect. A graveyard does NOT primarily refer to a burial ground within a churchyard. Almost the exact opposite. With no church in site, a group of tombstones is frequently (if not primarily) referred to as a graveyard.

A churchyard is the grounds around a church that often contains graves (so, it can be a type of cemetery located immediately adjacent to the church building). A graveyard, however, is a a different type of cemetery as it's land slated for graves away from the churchyard. Still church-affiliated, but no longer on the church grounds. So, a churchyard and a graveyard are not the same. The former means next to the church, the latter means affiliated with (but located away from) the church.

Technically, it would be a misnomer to say Jewish graveyard or Buddhist graveyard. But, then again, graveyard is often used in non-cemetery contexts - like ship graveyard and car graveyard. 71.226.227.121 (talk) 10:22, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Your claim is interesting, and if you can find some credible and reliable sources to support it, then we can make that change in the page. --- FULBERT (talk) 13:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

"Cemetery Key" section

I propose the removal of the "Cemetery Key" section, as it is pure fiction. The word "zental" refers to a dental company, the given references are totally irrelevant, and all of the scriptures quoted are irrelevant to the subject or grossly misinterpreted. Darkman101 (talk) 03:59, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Added citation template

I counted at least 8 different sections that had no citations in them at all. I think that warrants an overall citations needed banner. Jmaxx37 (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

"Sematary" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Sematary and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 2#Sematary until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. QueenofBithynia (talk) 20:47, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Eurocentrism

The article is largely Eurocentric and concentrates on Christian cemeteries. As such, it might be renamed European Cemeteries or something like that.But as a pity, it also has a section on Arabic tribal cemeteries Not, however, on Islamic, Chinese, Sikh and other foreign cemeteries in general.Otto S. Knottnerus (talk) 22:00, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think that just because the current article has shortfalls, that we should cement those shortfalls into the title. It will be easier for us—or others—to expand with material about Islamic, Chinese, Sikh and other foreign cemeteries than for someone to create new pages to describe those subjects. — HTGS (talk) 10:15, 25 March 2023 (UTC)