浄閑寺—Jokanji, the "Throw Away" Temple "From the street, it looks like many other Tokyo temples, but behind the new main building is an old cemetery that has one particular point of interest, a crypt and monument to twenty-five thousand prostitutes interred there."
posted by gomichild
on Oct 30, 2008 -
14 comments
The biggest tourist attraction in Buenos Aires is a cemetery.
El Cementerio de la Recoleta is the final resting place for some of Argentina's most illustrious and wealthy residents. (Yes, Evita is among them.)
AfterLife explores the architecture, motifs, and history of this cemetery, as well as the stories of its residents.
[more inside]
posted by veggieboy
on Jan 28, 2008 -
16 comments
Hallstatt, Austria, besides being idylic, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is historically fascinating:
A Bronze Age cultural center, with a 2,500-year-old
salt mine (the world's first); beautiful
ice caves; and a Catholic cemetery so small that the dead were regularly disinterred after a time, their skulls painstakingly identified and decorated and stacked in an
ossuary.
posted by bigskyguy
on Aug 28, 2007 -
5 comments
The London Necropolis Railway During the first half of the 19th century, London's population more than doubled and the number of London corpses requiring disposal was growing almost as fast. Cemetery space in the city had failed to keep pace with this growth, and so the vast new
Brookwood Cemetery - the London Necropolis - was built in Surrey. Brookwood was the largest burial ground in the world when it was opened in 1854 by the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company. To get there, the deceased and their mourners - segregated by class - could
catch a train from Westminster. The Necropolis Railway survived until World War 2, when it was
heavily damaged. The railway was subsequently closed as motorised hearses became more popular. See also: Also: a six part Fortean Times article extracted from Google's cache [
1 2 3 4 5 6]
posted by carter
on Aug 1, 2005 -
14 comments
Slightly ominous, slightly beautiful collection of ePostcards (and photographs) of Streatham Cemetery, rendered in the subtlest use of Flash I've ever seen (gentle animations on small portions of each image. Be sure to view the cemetery in all four seasons, multiple pix of each.
posted by jonson
on Sep 13, 2003 -
26 comments
Where Iraq's desaparecidos wound up. This is about Iraq, but it's not about the war. It's about a graveyard, its manager, and his "awful green book." The reporter is an Arab, which makes a difference, as you can see in the striking last sentence of this paragraph:
All of the dissidents buried at the Kirkh Islamic Cemetery were once held at Abu Ghreib prison, the country's largest and most notorious jail, from which Hussein released nearly 10,000 inmates last October. When word of their release came, the prisoners—from petty thieves to political dissidents, and all kept in horrendous conditions—overran the guards and stampeded the iron gates. Abu Ghreib is also the name given to Iraqi fathers who no longer have children.
posted by languagehat
on Apr 23, 2003 -
9 comments
Find A Grave is a searchable database of 2.8 million grave records. Many records include photos, especially the
famous graves. They include the
good, the
bad, and the
ugly. The award for most famous graves in one photo might be this
one.
posted by stevis
on Sep 29, 2001 -
13 comments
