Defining the place of burial: What makes a cemetery a cemetery?

A great deal of material has been written about cemeteries based on the assumption that they constitute a specific type of burial place, but few writers have given close attention to the task of describing the features that may be particular to cemeteries. This paper regards cemeteries as specifically demarcated sites of burial, with an ordered internal layout that is conducive both to families claiming control over their grave spaces, and to the conducting of what might be deemed by the community as appropriate funerary ritual. Cemetery space can be regarded as sacred, in that it acts as a focus for the pilgrimage of friends and family and is protected from activities deemed 'disrespectful'. However, cemeteries are principally secular spaces: ownership is almost always by municipal authorities or private sector concerns. The sites are intended to serve the whole community, and in doing so are closely integrated into community history. The sites are able to carry multiple social and political meanings. Using these elements of definition-physical characteristics, ownership and purpose, sacredness and the site's ability to promote or protect the individuality of the deceased-the paper characterizes churchyards, burial grounds, mass graves, war cemeteries and pantheons.