Body Farms, Archaeology, Death and Ethics!

A little while ago I was talking with a classmate about death, burials... the usual... and the topic of body farms was brought up.  Body farms are facilities people donate their bodies to where decomposition can be observed, studied, and used in the understanding forensic anthropology.

Stemming from this slightly morbid conversation, I began thinking about concepts related to this class; concepts of consent and ethics related to the investigations and diggings of artifacts and human remains in archaeology. In the case of the body farms, people consent to their bodies being used for science, however, the bodies examined in archaeology is not necessarily a consensual thing.

Excavations can arise from the unexpected.  For example when people start building a house find bones in the ground, a quick archaeological excavation most-likely would occur.  Also, archaeologists may go out hoping to uncover remains and artifacts in various terrains, such as the high-altitude burial sites of the Inca child sacrifices (for more information on this, check out our project).  But, should these remains be uncovered and examined?  How should they be used? What is appropriate treatment of the remains?

As the class is drawing to an end, and before I submit my blog, I'm left feeling a bit torn about the ethics surrounding archaeology.  Ethics, like Erin said today, are culturally based.  If they are culturally based, how can there be a overall acceptance in what is appropriate archaeology (i.e. how sites should be excavated and what do do with remains).  

So going back to body farms... the bodies found in these farms have consented to the acts that occur.  Remains, both artifacts and bodies, found across the world did not consent to the examinations that are occurring in archaeological digs.  So what can one do?... Are case-by-case investigations useful? Is it appropriate to create a committee that has a say on what should happen with remains? Should remains be left alone? If remains are left alone, where does archaeology lie?  I'm left with a million questions, which I think is a good thing, and I wonder how other people in this class feel about the ethics surrounding archaeology as well...

I think that archaeology is useful, you can gain a lot of information about societies both past and present, but I must admit that studying archaeology has often brought up concerns for me regarding the ethics that surround the discipline.  As I've progressed through this degree, the one thing I think is important for me to remember when examining the past is to try and keep an open mind and to be critical about all information. I need to remember that not everyone has the same beliefs and values as I do.

Kinship and Archaeology

Topic of this entry:
- Examination of kinship and burials in archaeology
- What are the newer approaches to kinship

For my article assignment in this course, my focus of investigation was on how anthropologists study kinship through archaeology.  In class we were asked to explore the newer approaches used in examining kinship.  While finding an article, I was surprised by how limited newer anthropological articles on kinship studies were. When I did find anything newer, a lot of the articles were based on biological approaches.    

In our class text, Archaeology of Death and Burial by Parker Pearson (1999), the end of chapter 5 examines some newer approaches in kinship studies.  Biological investigations are becoming a more prominent approach used to uncover kinship of the deceased.  Depending on the remains, for instance if soft tissue is still present or if the teeth are available, scientific examinations are proving useful by providing connections and leading to potential interpretations and meanings in past societal organization and structure.

One example where biological techniques are used is in the examination of DNA.  If there are multiple burials in an area and DNA information is something archaeologists are able to access, anthropologist can determine whether or not the individuals were related biologically.  Another example of these techniques is the examination of teeth.  Teeth can be used to understand the diet of the deceased allowing for the potential to understand class differences through diet - if the diet was the same or similar, this may indicate the individuals were related or close in societal organization.

Examining kinship through archaeological artifacts such as houses or the locations of the deceased in a burial never seemed right to me; there are so many potential interpretations that can arise.  So after reading the research on biological approaches in uncovering kinship, I was beginning to favor the direction of biological techniques as the better approach to questions of kinship...

However...

There are some issues in biological approaches to kinship as well.  For example, it is limited when DNA isn't available... furthermore...

One interesting fact Erin brought up in class was that even if you were able to uncover biological connections amongst the deceased this may not be accurate either.  For instance, biological approaches used in examining DNA of the deceased can indicate whether or not the individuals were blood related, but what if the kinship relations in the society being investigated is not based on blood relations?  What happens if kinship ties are based on social relations and blood relations do not have close (or even any) ties with each other?

So, I'm still torn on how I feel about kinship studies.  Understanding past societal relations are often examined in anthropology, but how can it be examined accurately?  Furthermore, if we use, for instance, nuclear family structures as our template, we are examining a very western notion related to kinship - how can we avoid these types of biases in anthropology?

Cave People of the Himalaya

For our group project on Inca child sacrifice, a lot of these mortuary practices have been found at high elevation mountain summits.  I came across another archaeological site, exploring mortuary practices on mountains this time in the Himalayas. On this webpage, you can find information and a short video clip/trailer on this site and research.  The video is pretty neat; technical climbers were hired to help the archaeologist reach the caves on the mountain cliff face.  The process of getting to these caves is pretty extreme... this process gives me a new perspective on how extreme finding mortuary remains can be.

March 10th Blog Prompt

In order for our wee 3 person group, consisting of a mountain, a little c-diddying, and myself (a guinea pig farmer?!), I searched for a website to compare our current project to.  The three of us are exploring the topic of Inca child sacrifice - a slightly morbid topic, but a topic that is very suitable for the group of Cadavers Inc. who also enjoy interpretive expression to share ideas and stories... sadly this is too hard to show via blogging, so I'll use written comments instead today...


My website of comparison, is wonderful site for guidance and examination.  The topic of my chosen site is based on a news article about 3 frozen Inca child mummies from the high elevation site of Mount Llullaillaco.  My chosen website uses this news article as their basis of discussion, however the website quotes the article word for word for the most part - a problematic aspect since plagiarism is a bit of an issue.  The website, itself, has pictures of a mummy between some of the paragraphs, something that I think can draw in the reader and thus be useful in our own website.  Another thing this website has, is a section for comments. There is quite a mix of comments posted, but some fairly useless or even inappropriate ones.  I'm not sure comments would be good for our project's website, but it can bring in an interesting potential for further analysis and dialogue.  

In the meantime, since I know we all have lots of free time, here's another website and video with more information on the topic of Inca child sacrifice!

--> website

--> video on the documentry discussed in the above website

The documentary is an example of another way to share archaeological findings and research to the general public.  

Inca Child Sacrifice as Computer Wallpaper!?

For our project we're looking into Inca child sacrifice and I was exploring the internet for an website for our blog prompt, and stumbled upon the National Geographic site photography section.  I was surprised to find that you can download an image of a child sacrifice for your computer wallpaper.  The image itself is of the lower portion of the child's body in a crouching position.  You cannot see the face of the child, but you can see the arm, hand, and feet of the child.

I found this somewhat disturbing - a place where you can download images of the remains of people for your computer wallpaper?  It got me thinking, how I react to images of skeletons and mummies on the internet and how I react to images in our articles.  Would I have reacted the same way if this image was not of a child or a mummy? Is the reason that you can download this image for the sole purpose of a computer background what startled me?  How do these images on the internet affect you? Do you react differently to  images that are in academic sources versus images that can be accessed for entertainment or for the general public as computer wallpaper?

Click here for the link... you can choose the size of wallpaper you want and find other images for computer wallpaper (there's also a image of an "iceman").

Vampires in Venice

After sitting at my desk working away on my papers for the past couple of days, I decided to turn on the TV for a break thinking I'd watch a mindless comedy.  However, when I turned on the TV, a documentary by National Geographic was on about vampires in Venice.  The documentary focused on a skeleton of a woman who had a brick placed in her mouth.  Before this class I probably wouldn't have thought anything about this documentary, but after having discussed ideas of regarding interpretations of burials and vampires I put down the remote to hear what the show was discussing.

The focus of this documentary was on 16th century Venice, when life expectancy was about 40 years old.  With testing of the woman's canine tooth with a special xray machine the researchers found this skeleton to be somewhere between the ages of 61-71, twenty to thirty years older than the average person.  This led the researchers to ponder the idea that perhaps people thought this woman was a witch and not normal.  They also ran tests on her bones to determine what she ate.  Apparently one can find out what sort of food the deceased ate depending on trace chemicals found in bones.  These researchers found that this particular individual ate a primarily vegetarian diet (also finding that she was therefore lower class as she most-likely could not afford regular meat in her diet).  So since she was vegetarian she couldn't be a vampire right?!...

Well further investigations regarding the interpretations of vampires occurred.  Researchers found that during the time this individual was buried it was taboo to dig up graves of the deceased.  However, since this was during the time of the plague graves were often dug up to create mass burials for the victims of the plague.  When people saw the buried individuals queries arose.  The findings caused suspicion and interpretations that these corpse were vampires due to various findings as follows.  These buried individuals appeared to have long finger nails, more hair, skin that appeared to be cracked, bloated stomachs, as well as the linen placed on their faces the linen around the mouth had disintegrated and was peeled back.  As well, sometimes the buried moved!  What did all these things mean? To answer some of these questions further research was conducted.  As a corpse decomposes, skin begins to shrink causing finger nails and hair to appear longer since the skin has shrunk back.  The shrinking also causes the skin to look unusual.  As the internal organs decompose, the stomach can swell and and gases escape through the mouth causing the material around the mouth to rot away.  Movement of the corpse can be the cause of gases escaping or rodents etc.

Another interpretation as to why these corpse were considered vampires was that one symptom of the plague was blood coming out of the mouths of victims.  This blood could be interpreted as the consumption of blood.  Then when the buried corpse were found to move or display oddities,  more interpretations that these people were vampires arose.

So when these mass graves were uncovered to bury more people, items such as bricks were placed in the corpse mouths as means to keep them from doing anything a vampire might do.

Overall, I thought it was kinda neat to see something on TV that relates to the material we've covered in our class.  Furthermore, it was interesting how these researchers used the data and material at hand and how they gathered the interpretations.  They used the findings from the graves, written transcriptions, new technologies, etc and in the end reformed the skull putty to create a would-be 3D image of the woman's face.  

I found this webpage, by National Geographic News, that gives more information on this documentary.
And I also found this short clip of the end of the documentary.

Norse settlement may help us adapt to global changes? - Looking at how archaeology and the past can potentially help the future...

"Our future will in part be shaped by climate change, and to prepare for it we can learn valuable lessons from how societies of the past have adapted and even flourished amid a backdrop of difficult conditions." - Andrew Dugmore

I was browsing through the internet looking at stories related to archaeology and death and came across this article - Norse settlement may help us adapt to global changes.  It's not exactly an article on death, but I think it's still interesting.

The article states, by examining archaeological remains scientists and archaeologists are interested in finding clues to how the economy, trade, politics, technology and climate change affected the Norse and what possible changes occurred in Norse society to adapt with these changes.  Apparently these adaptations may give clues to how modern society can adapt to global changes.  The article doesn't have much scientific detail on the actual archaeological dig, however there are links at the bottom for a video and journal article associated with this research.

I thought this an interesting concept; how might examining the dead or past societies be used to help people and societies in modern times?  I don't have a lot of knowledge on the Norse or the conditions associated with Norse society, but viewing the past as something that can provide potential answers in modern time is, I think, a fascinating concept.

Additional Resources of Interest about the Ross Bay Cemetery War Graves

Below are additional bits of interesting information that I found in association to our monument analysis.

City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee Minutes:

- Provides an interesting example of how to look at maintaining cemeteries and the questions that arise

The following link is of the City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee Minutes from April 13, 2004.  In these minutes, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission outlined a proposal for an upgrading and further maintenance of the War Graves in the Ross Bay Cemetery.  This report is primarily interesting as it also provides the history of the Commonwealth War Graves Committee, but also provides comments the Victoria Heritage Advisory Commission asked in the meeting pertaining to altering the War Graves as well as provides answers some of the committee had in response to these questions.  One such question was “How do you respond to family members if there is an error on the headstones” and another was “What might be the public reaction.”  These two question seem fitting as we have discussed how changes in cemeteries and memorials can affect our anthropological research in investigating how people treated their dead and what it means to alter these sites.    http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/minutes_boards/min040413_heritage.pdf

Additional Material on the Monuments:

1. The following link provides additional information on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, including summaries of the organization and information on the monuments of remembrance found both at the Ross Bay Cemetery and other Commonwealth War Grave memorial locations.  This link will provide additional information on the Cross of Sacrifice and the four-sided granite Naval Memorial. 

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/Memorials/tomb/cwgc/background

2. The following link provides further readings on Monuments of the First and Second World Wars.  There is a brief section on Monuments in Canada, focusing on the Navel Memorial.  http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/monuments-of-the-first-and-second-world-wars

3. This following link provides information on the Cross of Sacrifice.

http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_tour10.htm

4. The following link is from the Veterans Affairs Canada webpage and provides a short write-up of the Ross Bay’s war memorial locations. 

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/memorials/memcan/victmem  

Maps of the Ross Bay Cemetery:

http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_sec.htm

http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/brochurerbc.pdf

The Ross Bay Cemetery War Graves: a monument analysis of similarities and differences

Fieldwork team: Carmen Fletcher, Devin Forbes, Mytch Gales

Click here for a link to the map!

What We Examined:

For our monument assignment we explored the War Graves at the Ross Bay Cemetery.  We examined the War Graves located on the lower southeastern and southwestern corners of the cemetery.  The cemetery sectioned these two areas as War Grave locations; however, we also found soldier’s graves sporadically throughout the cemetery.

 

Our focus consisted of examining the differences and similarities we found amongst the two War Grave locations, such as the gravestones themselves, placements of the graves (i.e. in neat quaint rows in visually equal distances between the graves or spaced more sporadically), and who was associated with each gravestone. 

We noted that in the eastern corner there were two large monuments.  One of them was a Cross of Sacrifice, which recognizes World War 1 soldiers who died and also includes the dates of World War 2, indicating it recognized WW2 soldiers as well.  The other monument was a four-sided granite Naval Memorial, a tribute to the Royal Naval Canadian Reserve for the individuals who died in the sinking of the H.M.C.S Galiano.  Both were placed at the perimeter of this section and in close proximity to each other.  The graves in this area were place in even rows, which was quite different from the western corner of the cemetery. 

The graves at the western corner were placed more sporadically, not visually equal in distance between the plots or in neat rows, and looked less maintained.  These graves did not appear as uniformed and also had notable differences such as graves containing multiple burials in a single plot and colour on some of the gravestones.  The graves here also had dates later than the ones on the eastern side, for example dates of death started around 1923 in this area and in the eastern corner around 1919.

Lastly, another interesting aspect of the placement of War Graves was that some of the soldier’s graves were placed outside of these two-sectioned War Grave locations, scattered throughout the cemetery and isolated from other War Graves.  One of the furthest War Grave locations from these two sites was centrally located at the northern section of the cemetery (which can be seen on our google map that we made).  Some of the other sections we found War Graves in were the Roman Catholic and Anglican sections. 

War Grave Tombstones:

We began our identification of War Graves by first going to each War Grave location in the cemetery section and finding the similarities that identified the soldier’s graves.  The graves themselves included the soldier’s rank and ID.  These graves typically included a Maple Leaf, to symbolize Canada, and a cross, most likely to symbolize Christianity.  Some gravestones had variation, such as emblems signifying their position as the soldier (i.e. Royal Air Force), no cross, and sometimes even no Maple leaf.  We focused much of our exploration on graves that had some sort of distinguishing feature that was not the typical norm of the vast majority of these gravestones.  The images we included on our Google Map page demonstrate how these two locations look, focusing on these gravestones, which in our mind, were unique in comparison to the other gravestones in the surrounding area. 

With further research, I explored the Commonwealth War Grave Commission website for the guidelines of structural features and graves for memorials and cemeteries that have Commonwealth War Graves (http://www.cwgc.org/about-us/what-we-do/architecture/our-cemetery-design-and-features.aspx).

A Closer Look At The Graves:

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an organization, which cares for the graves and memorials of people of the Commonwealth countries who died fighting in World War 1 and World War 2, such as the graves in the Ross Bay cemetery (http://www.cwgc.org/media/10441/easy_read_about_the_cwgc.pdf).    

The organization states that each of the “graves are marked by uniform headstones, differentiated only by their inscriptions:  the national emblem or regimental badge, rank, name, unit, date of death and age of each casualty is inscribed above an appropriate religious symbol and a more personal dedication chosen by relatives” (http://www.cwgc.org/about-us/what-we-do/architecture/our-cemetery-design-and-features.aspx). 

A Closer Look At The Cross of Sacrifice:

The Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, states that the Cross of Sacrifice is a “World War 1 memorial designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, erected by Imperial War Graves Commission” (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/brochurerbc.pdf).  As well, the design of the Cross of Sacrifice is used in other British Commonwealth cemeteries and memorials recognizing war graves.  This design “symbolizes the Biblical passage of turning swords into ploughshares, and commemorates the thousands of Canadians buried in France, Flanders, and other places” (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_tour10.htm).  Furthermore, the Cross of Sacrifice is placed in cemeteries that have more than 40 war graves.  The Ross Bay Cemetery has about 150 of these graves (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_tour10.htm).  This monument, the Commonwealth War Grave Commission states, are made of Portland stone, stands on an octagonal block, and has a bronze sword attacked to the front of the monument that faces downwards.  The cross symbolizes Christianity and the sword symbolizes the connection of these graves with war (http://www.cwgc.org/media/10446/easy_read_about_cwgc_cemeteries_and_memorials.pdf).

Research questions:

At lot of questions arose while both researching and examining this site, however my main research questions are, why are there are two War Grave locations at opposing corners of the cemetery and why do these two areas differ in appearance?  Additional questions can be found on a previous blog entry.  


I will try and find resources as well as make my own interpretations of these findings.    

Answering the Research Questions:

In researching my questions, I found no explanation as to why there were two War Grave locations at the Ross Bay cemetery.  I did however find some interesting information as to why the War Graves in the south-eastern corner looked better maintained than the south-western corner as well as a potential answer to why the monuments were at the eastern corner.  Below I will post the material I found as well as the webpage associated with these answers. I will also include my own interpretations of the material I found from these resources as well as what material was not included in these resources.

City Hall Minutes:

- Ideas on why the graves at the south-eastern corner of the Ross Bay Cemetery looked well maintained

Looking for material on an explanation for the differences between the graves I came across the City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee Minutes from October 25, 2005; in the minutes it states that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission wanted to restore the south-eastern corner of the Ross Bay Cemetery by doing the following: replacing headstones, removing cement curbing and footings, providing funding for better kept horticulture maintenance.  From these reports, I gather that these maintenance propositions were accepted as that is why the south-eastern corner looks well maintained and better cared for then the south-western corner.  http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/minutes_boards/min051025_heritage.pdf   

Commonwealth War Grave Commission:

- Why the War Graves look the way they do and ideas on why the south-eastern corner of the Ross Bay Cemetery looks different from the south-western corner
- Also, a reason as to why the monuments are most-likely located in the eastern corner of the cemetery, rather than the western corner

The following link is from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission webpage and discusses the design and features found in Commonwealth War Grave locations such as structural features (i.e. Cross of Sacrifice) and how the graves should appear.  At the top of the page is an interesting quote by Sir Frederic Kenyon’s vision of these cemeteries and was provided in 1918.  The quote explains his vision of how the landscape and the gravestones in a cemetery should look; rows of flowers, uniformed orderly rows of gravestones, and that in there should be a Cross in a prominent area to these graves symbolizing Christianity and self-sacrifice. 

Two aspects of this quote primarily got my attention.  This quote states, “[t]he graves will, wherever possible, face towards the east, and at the eastern end of the cemetery will be a great alter stone, raised upon broad steps, and bearing some brief and appropriate phrase or text.” This explains why the location of the monuments are in the eastern corner of the Ross Bay Cemetery.  However, the gravestones alternated by facing east and west.  I wonder if this is because of lack of space or for another reason.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find material further explaining the placement of graves at the War Grave locations in the Ross Bay Cemetery.

http://www.cwgc.org/about-us/what-we-do/architecture/our-cemetery-design-and-features.aspx

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria:

- Exploring the idea of the War Grave upgrade at the Ross Bay Cemetery and why the south-eastern corner looks different from the south-western corner

This link provides some history of the Ross Bay Cemetery.  It includes an image of the original map of the Ross Bay Cemetery as well as the expansion in 1893 and 1906.  Furthermore, there is a brief write-up on the Commonwealth War Graves Upgrade at the cemetery.  It explains how in 2006 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission upgraded the south-eastern War Graves location, however, there was not mention of the south-western War Graves location.  This may explains why the War Grave location in the eastern location looks better maintained, but sadly does not give me any clues as to why the western location was not upgraded as well.  Perhaps this has to do with who was buried here and perhaps the Commonwealth War Graves Commission does not fund this area.  As well, as noted by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission website, the eastern corner is where monuments should be placed.  Maybe due to a preference of the eastern location, the western location was neglected. 

http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_his.htm

Research Question Final Thoughts:

Some of my inquiries are still unanswered.  I wanted to discover why there were two War Grave locations in the Ross Bay Cemetery, but unfortunately I was unable to find material that clearly states why there are two sites; this limited my examination of the differences between these two locations.  The Commonwealth War Grave Commission webpage states that each War Grave should be uniform.  I wonder, then, if only the south-eastern corner of the cemetery is maintained by Commonwealth War Grave Commission.  However, I do not understand why this would be the case because the soldier’s graves in the south-western location are also Canadian soldiers and therefore should be recognized by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission.  There must be another reason; maybe since a lot of the dates at the south-western location have a later date of death (i.e. 1923), these soldiers were not included as war deaths because they died after the war.  If this were the case, perhaps that is way some of these graves plots contained multiple burials in one plot.  Or, if as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission states that all gravestones should be uniform and these graves were not all visually uniform maybe this is why they are not maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  Other potential answer for having two War Grave locations could be that family members wanted these soldiers remembered differently (i.e. in another location).  Also, before I researched the Commonwealth War Grave Commission webpage I thought that the soldier's in the south-western corner were placed there because they did not come from a wealthy family, but upon my research the organization states that all soldier's should be recognized equally so class should not be a reason for the difference in location.  Nevertheless, whatever the reason for the two locations, both War Grave corners at Ross Bay Cemetery recognizes that these people were soldiers.  

____________________________________________________________________________

Bibliography

City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee, 2004.  City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee Minutes April 13, 2004.  [online] Available at: <http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/minutes_boards/min040413_heritage.pdf>  [Accessed 9 February 2012].  

City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee, 2005.  City of Victoria Heritage Advisory Committee Minutes October 25, 2005. [online] Available at: <http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/minutes_boards/min051025_heritage.pdf> [Accessed 9 February 

  

Commonwealth War Grave Commission, n.d.  Our Cemetery Design and Features.  [online] Available at: <www.cwgc.org/about-us/what-we-do/architecture/our-cemetery-design-and-features.aspx> [Accessed 7 February 2012]. 

Commonwealth War Grave Commission, n.d.  About the Commonwealth Wars Graves Commission.  [online] Available at: <www.cwgc.org/media/10441/easy_read_about_the_cwgc.pdf> [Accessed 7 February 2012].

  

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, n.d.  Ross Bay Cemetery.  [online] Available at: <http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb.htm> [Accessed 5 February 2012].  

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, n.d.  Ross Bay Cemetery Brochurer.  [online] Available at: <www.oldcem.bc.ca/brochurerbc.pdf> [Accessed 5 February 2012].  

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, n.d.  Ross Bay Cemetery – Virtual Tour.  [online] Available at: <http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_tour10.htm> [Accessed 5 February 2012].

Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, n.d.  Ross Bay Cemetery – History.  [online] Available at: <http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_rb_his.htm> [Accessed 5 February 2012].

The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2012.  Monuments of the First and Second World Wars.  [online]  Available at: <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/monuments-of-the-first-and-second-world-wars>  [Accessed 7 February 2012].  

Veterans Affairs Canada, 2011.  Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  [online] Available at: <http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/Memorials/tomb/cwgc/background> [Accessed 7 February 2012].

Veterans Affairs Canada, 2011.  Victoria Memorial.  [online] Available at: <http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/memorials/memcan/victmem> [Accessed 7 February 2012].  

Monument Assignment - Current thoughts

For our monument assignment we explored the War Graves in Ross Bay Cemetery.  Please check out this link for some information on the Ross Bay Cemetery.

The map above is an image from the that previous website and is a map of the Ross Bay Cemetery including the marked sections of the cemetery (note the War Grave locations at the lower corners).  The numbers on the map indicate key places of interest that can be found by clicking this link.


Below, I will post a link to our google map location which includes (unedited - only for now) write-ups of each grave and location we examined.

Monument Assignment link to Map

Click here for a link to our map.

Current Thoughts:

Initially I thought that it would be interesting to examine the Jewish Cemetery http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_je.htm.  Very recently it has undergone vandalism and I felt that doing our monument project here would be beneficial as we could document this site before any further possible destruction occurred.  However, I also worried that the current vandalism might make scheduling a time with the cemetery (it isn't open to the public) potentially more difficult (cleaning up after the vandalism, extra protection of the site, etc.).  As well, working with a group could have restricted the time we would be able to effectively schedule a time for both my group and the Rabbi to allow us access to the cemetery.

So we explored our options and examined what we found interested us.  We researched other cemeteries and talked about finding monuments outside of cemeteries (ie. park benches).  We concluded on looking at the Ross Bay Cemetery.  We discussed examining family plots or war graves.  None of us had examined the Ross Bay Cemetery before so we did not want to have an exact idea of what we were going to document until we meet there.  In the end we examined the War Graves located on both lower corners of the cemetery, noting any differences and similarities we found amongst the two locations and the graves themselves.  We noted that in the eastern corner there were two large monuments recognizing World War 1 soldiers and the graves in this area were largely in new, quaint rows.  The lower western corner, however, was different.  The graves here were placed somewhat more sporadically.  The graves were not as uniformed, there were multiple individuals in a single plot and we found other interesting characteristics such as colour used on the grave stones.  One other thing that was interesting about the cemetery itself was that we also found additional soldier graves throughout the cemetery.  These graves were indicated like the graves in the War Grave sections (including the ID and rank of the soldier) but was placed amongst other sections such as in the Roman Catholic and Anglican sections.

Currently we are examining what potential research questions we would like to ask.  Some ideas we have come up with are:

- why are there two locations for the War Graves and why are some soldier graves found outside of these two locations

- what does it mean to have graves located at the lower corners of the cemetery

- why are there differences such as colour or multiple individuals in the western graves but none in the eastern location

- why was there only monuments for WW1 soldiers at the eastern corner and none at the western corner

- why were some graves marked with a cement boarder and others not

- what does it mean to have a Canadian flag and cross on most soldier grave stones and other emblems on a selective few

Those are just a few of the questions that come to mind.  I'm going to re-examine this again in a few days to see how I feel about our examination and re-evaluate the information we found at the cemetery today.

Photos of War Graves from the Ross Bay Cemetery

These are some photos from the Ross Bay Cemetery.  

Photos from the lower east corner.

Large monument structures which recognize the soldiers of WW1 (and WW2)

The photos above and below are two images of the rows of graves found at the eastern corner of the cemetery.  The image above is facing north, whereas the image below faces south.

Photos from the lower western corner of the cemetery. 

The photos above and below shows how the graves in the lower western corner of the War Grave section of Ross Bay Cemetery are not in 'neat' rows like the graves of the lower eastern corner of the cemetery.

Photo of a soldier's grave located outside of the War Grave sections. 

Talking about death - on a more personal note -

Our blog prompt this week is to explore what would be included in our own burial and thus how your identity would be expressed or how other's might express our identity through a burial.  Kinda a morbid theme, eh.  I'm not entirely comfortable with that sort of discussion, so instead I'm going to write about how I feel about burials at this moment in time.  

Reflections of how I feel about my own burial:

I am not sure how I'd feel about my own burial.  Growing up, as a young child, I heard stories about my mom's family plot and felt a sort of attachment towards this site.  The attachment was due to many reasons, but the one I can share is that this connection came through seeing how much my mom missed her parents and her own close connection with them led me to feel a connection towards having a burial connected to them as well.  Maybe this was because I was a young kid idolizing my mom and never knew her parents and felt that this would create some sort of closer bond.  I'm not sure how I feel about my death or burial anymore.  I guess I have those feelings I mentioned above still deep within me, but I don't have a deep desire for a certain type of burial.  

Exploring the idea of certain types of burials... with a focus on the how a close friend was buried:

On another topic of burials and death, I've had past loved one's in my life die.  It was not easy to go through and one death in particular was very difficult.  My friend who died wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered in all the places she loved.  Her partner on the other hand did not want to allow this and instead wanted her buried.  In the end she was cremated and some of her ashes were to be scattered and some to be buried in a cemetery.  Being witness to hearing about how my friend's cremation/burial was happening was troubling to me.  I knew, as did those involved, how she wanted to deal with her death.  However, it was interesting to see how difficult it was for other people in her life to view her death and thus how death should be treated in their eyes.  They struggled with what cremation and the scattering of her ashes represented for them and were troubled by her not being buried.  It bothered me that my friend's wishes were not being met fully.  However, I think death is an emotional event (or at least this death was highly emotionally difficult) and decisions about ceremonies and the act of treating one's body in death is not an easy experience to go through. 

Starting to sum things up on my current feelings surrounding death:

Thinking about my own death or loved one's dying is not easy.  I think before this class I never thought of how burial or the treatment of death and the actions that take place in burials (or whatever act associated with death) could lead to examining identit(ies) of how that person was seen in death and how the community viewed death.  For me, until now, death and the actions surrounding the treatment of loved one's who have died lead to actions of remembering the dead as an event that took place around the time they died.  Then after death, their memory would be kept kept, but thinking of what future people thought of the ceremony or any sort of grave/etc was not a large factor.  Thus, this class has lead me to think about the treatments associated with death more deeply, yet I still do not have concrete feelings about burials within my own life.  

Getting used to the idea of writing a weekly blog...

Okay.  Hey everyone. We were asked to write about non-standard funerary practices available to Canadians.  During class we've mentioned changing trends in the treatment of the dead.  One thing that stuck out for me was the concept of "green" or "natural" burials (involving practices such as cremation or burials without a coffin or materials that aren't quick to decompose).  These burials have less impact on the environment and save space.  Though much of Canada isn't faced with limited space for burying the dead, this change can been seen as a move towards more environmentally conscious practices or changing views on what death and burials mean for Canadian's.

http://www.robp.ca/our-services/natural-green-burial/

The website above provides an example of how funeral practices have changed.  The site provides information on "natural" or "green" burials associated with Royal Oak Burial Park.