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.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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
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.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
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.
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.
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.
Maps of the Ross Bay Cemetery:
The Ross Bay Cemetery War Graves: a monument analysis of similarities and differences
Fieldwork team: Carmen Fletcher, Devin Forbes, Mytch Gales
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.
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
- 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.
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.
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.
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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].
Sunday, February 5, 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
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.
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