Sepulchral Monuments Research Articles

Style and Shape of Bolgar-Tatar Sepulchral Monuments: unity and uniqueness

The installing of sepulchral monuments is not an obligatory element of funeral culture in Islam. However, this phenomenon is widespread among the Tatar people. The tradition, which appeared in ancient times, still exists today. This article discusses the types of sepulchral structures and monuments. A large part of the paper is dedicated to the Bolgar-Tatar gravestones of the 13th– first third of the 20th century in Arabic script. Based on the analysis of the shape, ornament, and stylistic features of writing, a group of epitaphs is distinguished, united by certain parameters and a common area for the 13th–14th, 15th–16th, 17th–18th centuries. For the monuments of the 19th –20th centuries, the gravestone features are associated with the masters of stone carving. Further study of these monuments, including sepulchral structures – mausoleums, on the one hand, and the structure of the text, the language of epitaphs, on the other, will make it possible to identify the peculiarities of the funeral rite external side of certain regions, where Tatar people live.

Weak rocks in the Mediterranean region and surroundings: Threats and mitigation strategies for selected rock-cut heritage sites

The rupestrian habitat is a distinctive element of the Mediterranean landscape. It is made of structures excavated in the rocks and making benefit from the availability of weak rocks or the presence (in earlier period) of natural hollows and rock shelters. Typical examples are from all over the Mediterranean region, such as the sepulchral monuments and temples which date back to the years before the Christian era (Hittitian, Egyptian, Etruscan, Hellenistic Nabatean and early Christian structures) or the underground town and churches in Christian, Byzantine and medieval period (Caucasus, Anatolia, Ethiopia).Responsible institutions, as well as UNESCO, are deeply involved in programs for mitigating the risk and proposing a proper maintenance plan.In the present paper some case studies have been investigated, to show anthropological and structural similarities among them, but also geological, geomechanical and geomorphological ones. Etruscan monuments and temple of Tarquinia and Norchia (Italy), Petra and Al-Ula (Nabatean kingdom), Byzantine rupestrian Heritage in the Caucasus (Georgia) and some others, may offer a clue to understand the interconnection of Mediterranean cultures during the time. On the other hand, considering their geological and topographical properties, the main acting processes are slope instability on a rock material, that sometime shows a behavior that is at border between weak rock and stiff soil and where water and weathering may play a relevant role in their morphological evolution and future survival.In such conditions the main effort is to preserve them from an irreversible damage and to maintain their integrity and authenticity, making use of a strategy based on deep knowledge, advanced monitoring, low impact mitigation approach, integrated with the enhancement of local capacity and expertise.

Стиль Либерти в Турине

As a part of the ongoing study of the Italian Liberty style, the paper reviews the characteristics of Liberty style in Italian Turin in 1900–1910 through the study of urban architecture and sculpture. It highlights the preconditions for the growing popularity of the style, recites the major Turin architects working in Liberty style, as well as their significant projects. The paper analy­ses distinctive features of the architectural facade décor of Turin Liberty, as well as indicates typical features of Turin sepulchral monuments.

Značaj i simbolika psa na sepulkralnim spomenicima Salone

U radu su obrađeni salonitanski sepulkralni spomenici s motivom psa. Dva su osnovna cilja: prvi je proučiti odnos čovjeka i psa kontekstualizirajući ikonografske motive kroz različite aspekte kao što su lov, kult te individualistički pristup pojedinca prema psu kao kućnom ljubimcu; drugi cilj je, analizirajući spomenike, rekonstruirati predodžbu o položaju i slojevitom značenju psa u rimskom društvu, otkrivajući i simboliku određenih likovnih predložaka zastupljenih na salonitanskim sepulkralnim spomenicima.

Late Gothic, Renaissance and Manneristic Figural Sepulchral Monuments in Moravia and Czech Silesia

The overview study summarises in an updated context the findings of a long-term research into sepulchral sculpture in Moravia and Czech Silesia, which dealt primarily with whole-figure sepulchral monuments, ranging from examples dependent on fading Central European late Gothic tradition, through examples gradually influenced by early Renaissance italianising elements up to such forms that were marked by Italian and Nordic Mannerism. Based on a comprehensive regional and broader Central European style-critical comparison, applying the criteria of contemporary artistic influences, individual creative approach, craftsmanship routine and other indicia important for a work to be done, the study presents the efforts to incorporate works into circles given by a specific author or workshops, or to highlight the provenience ties of solitary works. The study shows that despite the enormous loss of sepulchral monuments that have occurred in the past, Moravia and Czech Silesia excel in its numerous production of figural tombstones, which demonstrate the ability of the monitored area to accept and operate with new humanist and representative content, and by the existence of which the local sepulchral sculpture reached specific expression. In addition to eschatological significance and private memorial function, the sepulchral monuments of nobility served also as a family policy, whereby the privileged strata confirmed the old tradition; which contained a personal, genealogical, confessional and political reminder. Despite the selective character of the study, the processed material brings findings that can contribute to deeper understanding of the overall picture of sepulchral tomb sculpture of the monitored area as well as to its evaluation in the national and European context.

Prospecting Archaeological Works at the Northern Defensive Wall in the Seaside Part of Derbent

The article presents some results of an archaeological researches conducted at the northern city wall in the seaside part of Derbent outside the medieval shakhristan. The soundings (No. 26–29) revealed layers of various geneses and provided new data on the historical topography of the medieval town. The obtained data point at some cultural layers of Pre-Mongol period (X – early XIII century) outside the shakhristan (soundings No. 26–28). It was period of flourishing for the medieval Derbent when the city occupied the territory of architecturally allocated shakhristan and when the near and far agricultural areas was actively used. These materials also confirm the earlier obtained data that the active life of the city ceased in the second quarter of the XIII century due to Mongol invasions. At the same time, excavations revealed some layers related to the late Sasanian period and connected with the large-scale construction of a stone defensive wall in the middle of the VI century (soundings No. 26, 27) and an adobe defensive wall built in the middle of the V century (sounding No. 27), which completely closed the Derbent pass.On the western border of the surveyed site, six Muslim stone sarcophagus-shaped sepulchral monuments of the XI–XII centuries were found in the modern ditch, as well as some stone plates from the destroyed cists. The sarcophagi are the most extreme east monuments within the medieval necropolis of Derbent, and they act as evident confirmation to Adam Olearius’ engraving (1637 AD) that depicted Derbent and its extensive northern cemetery with such monuments.

Arckép és önarckép Verancsics Antal (1504–1573) és a művészetek

Antal Verancsics (1504-1573) was born in Sebenico (Šibenik) to a noble family and he got to Hungary through family relations: his uncle János Statileo (Statilić) was bishop of Gyulafehérvár. His political career started in the court of King John I (Szapolyai). In 1541 he followed the widow of the king, Izabella Jagiello to Transylvania and only changed over to the other king of Hungary, Ferdinand I’s court in 1549 where he filled high administrative positions. As a Habsburg envoy, he sojourned in the Ottoman Empire on two occasions and in 1568 he concluded the Treaty of Adrianople (Hadrianopolis, Edirne). On the zenith of his ecclesiastic career he became archbishop of Esztergom (1569) and eventually cardinal (1573). He went into historiography, too: he wrote some works and a considerable number of sources he collected survive. In his youth he wrote poems in Latin and Italian and was on good terms with painters and sculptors. Martino Rota, also born in Sebenico, was invited to Hungary by him. Several data confirm that he had a keen interest in portraits (he wrote an epigram on Dürer’s Melanchthon portrait); he ordered portraits of himself from Melchior Lorch, Martino Rota and Antonio Abondio. He organized that a Crakow painter should paint the portrait of John Sigismund elected King of Hungary, and his correspondence with his siblings about having a portrait of his father painted is known. Back from his first mission in Turkey, in 1558 he wrote an epigram on an enigmatic woodcut composition of a multitude of elements tailored to Sultan Suleyman I, and dedicated the emblem to Maximilian, crowned king of Bohemia and heir apparent to the Hungarian throne. This composition is included in the second edition of Johannes Sambucus’ Emblemata. Some tomes of his library featured – in line with the fashion of the age – supralibros, and as bishop of Eger, he had an ornate parchment codex, a Praefationale made (1563). The rather mediocre quality initials of the manuscript echo the humanist cult of letters which produced the most beautiful achievements of artistic calligraphy in the middle of the century. In one initial Verancsics himself appears, his tiny figure kneeling before Christ’s cross (fol. 42r). Verancsics was interested in the material relics of antiquity, too: in Transylvania he collected stone carvings, coins and Roman inscriptions. As bishop of Eger he perpetuated the restoration of the castle in a monumental inscription. Also attracted to sepulchral monuments, he had the tomb of one of his predecessors in the diocese damaged in the siege of 1552 restored. He wished to have his funerary monument in the St Nicholas church in Nagyszombat, one like his predecessor in the episcopacy of Esztergom Miklós Oláh had, with a portrait statue. It was eventually not made. Finally, an overview of the sources that can provide clues as to the artistic interests of Antal Verancsics reveals that most of the sources are in the – unpublished – collection of letter and the book of poems he compiled. His intellectual self-portrait also includes his attraction to the arts.

"FAZIL-I FENA FİL EVKAF" ARŞİVİNDEN HATTAT MEZAR TAŞLARI

The way made İsmail Fazıl Ayanoğlu important in terms of Foundations and our cultural history is that he has a rich photograph archieve taken by him once upon a time and classified by their subjects and described by him as "Evidents of a small part of the civilization ocean". From this aspect, Ayanoğlu is known as also “fazıl-ı fena filevkaf” in the General Directorate of Foundations in Istanbul had served for General Directorate of Foundations until the date of his death is a founder and a man of culture, who participated in the operations for issuing, moving of the foundation cemeteries (in the grave transfer operations), reading epigraphs, renew and classification of them as a specialist of ancient artworks and sepulchral monuments in the General Directorate of Foundations in Istanbul for many years and undertaken an active role for taking photographs of many ancient artworks, particularly sepulchral monuments and recorded and brought to the future. After his death, Ayanoğlu has continued to contribute to scientific works of investigtors with his own books in the İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı Library and very rich photograph archive of ancient works and to provided visual support to the works of many investigators. In this study some sepulchral monument photographs of Calligraphists, considered as one of the the most important samples of photograph archive of İsmail Fazıl Ayanoğlu, are protcted in the file numbered 5403 in the archieve department of the İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı Library and previously never published anywhere, general view and biographic contents of epigraphs shall be included in chronological order.

Contribution to the Study of the Funerary Iconography in Upper Moesia – Representations of Physical Contact on Roman Sepulchral Monuments

Contribution to the Study of the Funerary Iconography in Upper Moesia – Representations of Physical Contact on Roman Sepulchral Monuments

Correlating damage condition with historical seismic activity in underground sepulchral monuments of Cyprus

Severe and repeated earthquakes devastated Cyprus in antiquity, causing in many cases the abandonment of entire settlement sites. Yet, information regarding the level of seismic activity of historical seismicity in Cyprus is very limited and does not provide the evidence to arrive at reliable conclusions relative to hazard damage parameters such as the severity or occurrence frequency of a seismic event. Thereafter, the level of risk in which these monuments are exposed is unclear leading to an increased uncertainty regarding their safeguarding from future events.The paper aims at investigating the correlation between damage observed in underground ancient tombs and the historical seismic activity at the area based on in situ observations and expert opinion analysis. In addition, the paper aims to simulate the current state of the tomb's structure, and predict, through a seismic scenario, the propagation of damage from future large earthquake events. Underground monuments are chosen since, due to the nature of the seismic force, they are further “protected” and capable of surviving strong ground motions as they follow the displacement of the soil surrounding them. Typical examples of such structures in Cyprus are the hypogea in the necropolis of the “Tombs of the Kings”, located in Paphos area. Some of these monuments exhibit severe cracking of the rock-cut stone walls and evidence of collapse of vertical resisting members of skeleton structure. Paphos area is the most active seismic region in Cyprus based on the historical catalogue of events with evidence of a number of destructive earthquakes.The framework presented herein utilizes information regarding the current geometry of these structures as documented from topographical surveys, their depth, area of opening, size of resisting members along with information regarding the geotechnical conditions at the site to arrive at estimates of the displacement demand under various seismic scenarios. The predicted shear strain levels on the walls are compared with the strain capacity under tension of the soil material to identify the possibility of propagation of cracking of the walls based on a specific seismic scenario.

Rock of Eternity: The Megalith of Pallikonda

The south Indian megalithic age exhibits a wonderful range of sepulchral and non sepulchral stone monuments erected possibly within 1100 BC–300 AD. However, building megalithic graves fell into disuse post-1000 AD for yet unknown reasons. The state of Tamil Nadu, southern India, hosts a large number of such megalithic sites and one monument, in particular, erected in the small panchayat town of Pallikonda, demands special attention. The site harbors a large, non-sepulchral stone arrangement comprising a large capstone balanced on three boulders. The entire structure lies at the foot of the large Pallikonda hill and overlooks the fertile basin of the Palar river. The capstone is oriented in the north-south axis, with a double projection that points towards north-west. Spatial analysis of the site reveals several unique features of the megalith. The structure is positioned strategically, so that a straight line drawn from the tip of the hill and passing through the north-west projection of the cap stone points towards the confluence of rivers Palar and Koundanyanadi, and on further extrapolation, to the summer solstice sunset. It is positioned at a point separating the arable from the non-arable lands. The capstone of the structure is dotted with cupules, some of which form distinct sightlines. Most of the sightlines match with the Iron age rising and setting azimuths of the stars Vega, Capella, Cassiopeia and Deneb. The study concludes that unique characteristics of the Pallikonda megalith mark it as a geographical, territorial and most possibly, as an astronomical marker.

Joy M. Giguere.Characteristically American: Memorial Architecture, National Identity, and the Egyptian Revival.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, as a result of Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt, Jean-François Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, published travel accounts, museum exhibits, and mummy unwrapping ceremonies, the affluent classes of the United States developed a fascination with ancient Egypt similar to that which rippled through Europe. Since Americans associated ancient Egyptian civilization with care for the dead, the principal effect on American culture was a change in funerary practices, including the advent of arterial embalming, elaborate caskets, cemetery gateways ornamented with winged orbs, and sepulchral monuments in the form of obelisks, Egyptian columns, pyramids, and sphinxes. The obelisk also became one of the most widely employed forms for public memorials, the most famous being the Washington Monument. Comprised of numerous stones pressed together, American monumental obelisks are larger than their monolithic precursors and possess hollow interiors containing staircases and observation platforms. The Washington Monument even boasts an elevator and electric lights; its creators thereby blended cutting-edge 1880s technology with the grandeur of the ancient obelisk. Because many of its stones were donated by states of the Union, including southern ones, the monument exemplified the concept of e pluribus unum at a time when reunification of the nation following a bloody civil war was a top priority. Like the pyramid but much easier to produce (provided one used multiple stones), the obelisk represented the durability, power, wealth, wisdom, and majesty of ancient Egypt, which Americans regarded as the first civilization. Speakers at the dedication ceremonies of these American monuments almost invariably expressed a confidence that both the monument itself and the relatively new nation it glorified would last as long as the structures of the pharaohs.

Las artes efímeras al servicio de la propaganda de la casa ducal de Medina Sidonia (1515-1639)

This article documents the ephemeral constructive activity of them Perez de Guzman in the capital of their State, Sanlucar de Barrameda, between the years 1515 and 1639, with the ephemeral sepulchral monuments in honors of the family and the Crown; the building of the Monuments of the Holy Thursday; and the feasts of consecration of several churches sponsored by them.

Salvation Through Religion. The Rebirth Of The Classics In Arent Passer’s Oeuvre.

Salvation Through Religion. The Rebirth Of The Classics In Arent Passer’s Oeuvre.

Religioossed motiivid „Rooma päevikus“ ja „Hingede öös“. Võrdlevaid tähelepanekuid

This article examines the symmetry between two novels by Karl Ristikivi (1912–1977), All Souls’ Night (1953) and Roman Diary (1976). The poetic and structural landmarks in the configuration of All Souls’ Night are compared to their counterparts in Roman Diary. These are discussed under the keywords spatial shift, spiritual guidance, widows, sepulchral monuments, and judgement. The most significant conclusion of the analysis is that all the listed motifs that first appear in All Souls’ Night, acquire a powerfully religious tone in Roman Diary. The protagonist’s existential crisis in All Souls’ Night has been supplanted in Roman Diary by the narrator’s religious rebirth. In All Souls’ Night, the first-person protagonist’s main problem is existential – the difficulties of life and living. In this very personal work, veiled with symbols, Ristikivi tries to come to grips with the shattered reality where he must live the rest of his life. In Roman Diary, the first-person protagonist is no longer facing life, but death. His reality is more visionary and brimming with references to the beyond. Questions about death and the afterlife are more important than anxieties about existence and life, and the afterlife is, understandably, linked to religion and faith, particularly to Christianity. Death is seen as one’s most direct way of communication with God, and Roman Diary tries to make sense of both faith and death. The faith of a living person, the common attribute of Ristikivi’s idealistic characters who want to make things right in the world, turns into a faith of a dying person. In Roman Diary, his last novel, Ristikivi deals primarily with a metaphysical world and the afterlife. The article also examines Roman Diary’s close relationship to Ristikivi’s other works and to works by other authors mentioned in the novel. In the article author’s opinion, the primary element linking these works is the process of unification and nationbuilding throughout European history, a significant theme in all of Ristikivi’s works. Numerous characters from his earlier works appear in Roman Diary. Many of Ristikivi’s characters are unifiers and/or maintainers of stability. Ristikivi’s yearning to write about a unified Europe was related to his personal fate as a refugee and his trauma of homelessness.

Rural people’s literacy skills in the remembrance of the departed: the writing of personal names on sepulchral monuments at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

At the end of the nineteenth century, more and more sepulchral monuments made of a durable material began to be erected in Finnish rural graveyards. The personal names inscribed on the monuments together with the dates of the deceased, epithets indicating their social status and biblical quotations were intended to reflect in written form the lives of the departed and remind those who come after them about the lives of the ancestors. I use a collective biographical method and databases to examine how sepulchral monuments represented the dead persons’ identities and life stories. I concentrate especially on the personal names inscribed on the monuments and analyse how they can be used as a source for ascertaining the nomenclature of the time and changes in ways that personal names were written. I consider in particular the role of improved literacy skills of the common people in this change. They were an important factor behind the creation of visible monuments and preserving the collective memory of the deceased person.

Cryptogam covers on sepulchral monuments and re-colonization of a marble surface after cleaning

Re-colonization of freshly cleaned surfaces by aeroterrestrial microbial communities is up to now poorly understood. Here, we present a comparative study addressing the composition of algal and fungal communities on a marble sculpture, based upon the analysis of 18S rRNA gene clone libraries from environmental samples. The samples were taken from a blackish and greenish biofilm cover before surface cleaning and 1 year after cleaning treatment, when traces of re-colonization became visible to the naked eye. The composition of the fungal community indicated clear differences between the old grown biofilm and the treated surface. While the former was dominated by the ascomycetes Rhinocladiella, Glyphium and Capnodiales, the black yeast Sarcinomyces was clearly dominant 1 year after cleaning, but could not be retrieved from the old grown black biofilm. The green algal community was dominated by different phylotypes of the lichen algae Trebouxia, as well as the cosmopolitan green algae Apatococcus and Stichococcus. No essential differences in the green algal community before and after cleaning could be observed.

»Po kopnem in morju pot je zaprta – nebo je odprto…«: Ikarjev lik na nagrobnih spomenikih Norika in Panonije

V Noriku in Panoniji so bile upodobitve Ikarja, čigar usodo in nesrečni konec natančno poda Ovidij (A. A. 2.20-2.40; Met.8.183-259), v sepulkralni plastiki nenavadno pogosto zastopane. Podobe so bile omejene na reliefno skupino z Dedalom oziroma Parko, ki mu pritrjuje krila, ter na mnogo številčnejši celopostavni ali doprsni tip Ikarja z razprtimi rokami s krili, tik pred vzletom oziroma v letu. Prvotna postavitev v sklopu nagrobnega spomenika, zlasti kot okras akroterija, bi lahko namigovala na zapustitev zemeljskega življenja in apoteozo pokojnika.

Mitološki prizori na noriških in panonskih sepulkralnih spomenikih

Noriške in panonske nagrobne spomenike antoninsko-severskega (in tudi poznejšega) časa, predvsem edikule, označuje bogat mitološki okras. Centralni mitološki prizor bolj ali manj razčlenjenega mitološkega aparata se ob portretih pokojnikov in napisni plošči (vse je postavljeno na sprednjo fasado spomenika), rabljen kot ena od treh bistvenih sestavin samopredstavitve pokojnika oz. družine. V izboru mitoloških prizorov sledijo ti spomeniki dvema osnovnima umetnostnima temama, ki jih poznajo rimski sepulkralni spomeniki – osredotočanju na smrt, tolažbo in objokovanje ter osredotočanju na čaščenje pokojnika in njegovih kreposti oz. na objokovanje in slovo, kar sta sicer dva topoi pogrebne poezije in retorike. Izbor posameznih mitov kaže na eni strani razlike med rimskimi sarkofagi in noriško-panonsko proizvodnjo, na drugi pa na razliko med noriško proizvodnjo in proizvodnjo panonskih središč.

Neoclassicism and local artistic tradition in the sepulchral monuments of the Certosa cemetery in Bologna during the napoleonic era and the restoration

The Cemetery of Bologna was founded in 1801 in the former monastery of the “Certosini” (Carthusians, a monastic order dissolved shortly before this period by the Napoleonic government). The cemetery is a special place where the architectonic and natural beauty of this ancient site blend in with the funerary sculpture, painting and architecture, but at the same time presents particularly important implications with regard to urban planning . This paper examines the development of the monumental Neoclassical section, whose expansion centred around the fourteenth to sixteenth century cloister. It was in these arches that the Þ rst monumental tombs in the Carthusian monastery, known as the “Certosa”, were built and involved the work of most of the local painters, sculptors and architects from the Napoleonic era and the early days of the Restoration. The number and grandeur of these works of art, unequivocally demonstrate how, during the Þ rst half of the nineteenth century, this site was the most artistically s ourishing in the city, as well as being a constantly expanding exhibition of contemporary art. For this reason, learned Italians and foreign travellers s ocked to visit this place when passing through Bologna. The cemetery, of international renown, was a source of great pride for the Bolognese, and was added to, by becoming the frequent subject of literary works. The town authorities soon wanted to promote its prestige by enriching and enlarging the site, as well as introducing methodical checks in the mid 1810s, regulating the artistic quality of the sepulchral monuments. In this way, the empty spaces and cloisters of the exmonastery continued to be adorned with an increasing number of funeral monuments.