Crypt
A crypt (from Greek crypt to vulgar Latin crupta for an underground church space) is usually a space that is used for the burial of coffins, sarcophagi and urns of the deceased. The main difference between the crypt and the burial is that the coffin is not given directly to the earth at the crypt, but is placed in a specially designed room. The definition of the municipal cemetery administration of Vienna is: "Crypts are bricked graves."
More rarely, the "hole in the ground" that has not been dug to hold the coffin during a burial is also called a crypt; accordingly, the verb denotes the activity of digging in cemeteries. This article does not deal with such excavated ordinary earth graves, but some transitional forms between earth graves and crypts ("crypt-like graves" as well as earth crypts with a firm covering of the coffin).
Crypt burial
Cultural history
In large parts of Europe, for example in the area of the Holy Roman Empire , crypt burials were initially mostly carried out inside churches. Since the Middle Ages, this form of burial has essentially been reserved for an exclusive group of people, including monarchs , bishops , aristocrats and significant individuals. Common folk dead were handed over to earth cemeteries . For the dead from higher social classes, sarcophagi were often used, which could sometimes be elaborate. The installation took place in underground church rooms, so the dead lay (as required) in a coffin and was not given to the ground. In this sense, a crypt burial made it possible to store the body of the deceased “undamaged” until the Last Judgment . Often these burial rooms were open to the public so that they were included in the representation and ritual commemoration of the dead ( memorial system ). Many graves of European monarchs are laid out as tombs .
At the end of the 18th century, a gradual change took place in Germany and Austria as a result of the Enlightenment and new ideas about hygiene . Burial in the earth began to supplant burial in tombs because the earth was the best protection against the decaying body. In 1784, under Emperor Joseph II, a ban on burial was introduced inside the church, with exceptions being permitted only for bishops. Instead, the tombs were moved to the cemeteries and became the subject of regulation by cemetery regulations.
The economic and political rise of the bourgeoisie at the beginning of the 19th century and the associated desire for representation meant that tombs and mausoleums continued to be built as a monumental form of tomb. In most cemeteries, the planning and construction of a crypt system was possible after examination and approval of the submitted construction drawings and access via a staircase was usually permitted if the grave vault was sufficiently large. Although this always had to be closed, it was possible for the relatives to get into the immediate vicinity of the coffin. In the course of the 19th century, the free installation of coffins in the vaults was increasingly prohibited, and the coffins had to be buried in wall niches or locked chambers within the actual crypt.
In addition to the tombs used as burial sites, there were urban tombs in many cemeteries for the temporary reception of corpses that were not to be buried until later. These facilities could be used for a fee, and the dead could be stored there for several months.
present
Crypt burials are now relatively rare in Germany and Austria. However, this type of burial is still common in Romanic countries, Ticino and French-speaking Switzerland.
The use of metal coffins, wooden coffins with zinc inserts or sealed stone sarcophagi is usually prescribed for crypt burials . In Switzerland, coffins with a zinc insert and compressed air filters are used. In many cases, the corpse is embalmed prior to burial . In addition, urns can be buried in a crypt.
Crypts in a Calabrian cemetery
Metal coffins in a crypt in the Vienna Central Cemetery
Types of tombs (selection)
A crypt is a brick burial site in which the coffin stands in a cavity. The access can be closed by a crypt slab. Depending on the structural design and use, different types of tombs can be distinguished.
In most cases, crypts are laid out underground, and there are also aboveground crypts. The transition to coffin wall niches, high graves and mausoleums is fluid. A crypt can be in a mausoleum. In most cases, the crypt is laid out in such a way that there is space for further burials at a later date.
Family tombs
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In many cases, because of their representative character, tombs are used as an hereditary burial or burial place of a family or a gender. A family tomb is a burial site designed as a tomb, where a family has the permanent right to use it to bury the remains of its deceased members. The term refers to the function of a crypt as a family burial place, but not to the structural design. In some cases family tombs are designed as mausoleums. The coffins can be set up freely or housed in coffin wall niches, depending on the construction and legal situation. Generally, coffins and / or urns from one or a few families are buried there over a long period of time .
Analogous to family tombs, which are reserved for members of a family, there are bishop's tombs for deceased clerical dignitaries, princely tombs as resting places for members of (former) princely families or, in Vienna's central cemetery, a crypt for the Austrian federal presidents .
Community tombs
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In many cemeteries there were privately organized tombs that were not reserved for a family, but in which noble and civil deceased could be buried who did not have their own hereditary burial.
Well-known examples of communal tombs are the vaults at the Jacobsfriedhof Weimar, in which Friedrich Schiller was buried in 1805 , or the Communary at the Petersfriedhof Salzburg , in which Mozart's sister Nannerl and his friend Michael Haydn were buried.
Coffin wall niches
A coffin wall niche is a burial site that looks like a columbarium , but is suitable for coffins due to its larger dimensions. Coffin wall niches can be found in a crypt , a mausoleum or as independent structures in cemeteries. In cases where it is not permitted to set up the coffins freely in a vault, the coffins are also buried in such wall niches within the crypt.
In Munich's Frauenkirche , for example, the coffins of numerous Wittelsbachers buried in the cathedral crypt are walled in such wall niches behind grave slabs. The bronze coffin Marilyn Monroes in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles is buried in a coffin wall niche, as is that of Franz Josef Strauss in the family crypt in Rott am Inn . Even Salvador Dali's grave in "Salvador Dalí Museum" in Figueres in the form of a coffin niche has been created.
Coffin wall niches in the Munich Frauendom (grave of King Ludwig III and other Wittelsbachers )
Coffin wall niche in the Vienna Central Cemetery (grave Stephan Sarkotić von Lovćen )
Crypt-like graves
Crypt-like graves are earth graves in which the grave site is given a tomb-like appearance by attaching a stone cover plate. Derived from this, in some regions, especially the Rhineland, large (family) earth graves are also referred to as “crypts”, without being bricked up and therefore tombs in the actual sense. Urns can also be buried in a tomb-like grave. A major difference to bricked tombs is the cost. Cemetery administrations usually charge much higher fees for bricked-up crypts than for installing stone cover plates on earth graves.
In some cemeteries there are tomb-like graves of a different type: excavated earth graves are first bricked up, then filled with earth again after the burial of the coffin and also closed with a stone cover plate. This solution is particularly useful where graves are very close to one another and when the grave is excavated, the adjacent grave site (or an adjacent structure) could be affected by the earth slipping down; if the grave is occupied again, this is prevented by the brick lining.
Often only the grave owner and the cemetery administration know whether a grave site with a stone cover plate is actually a brick-lined tomb or just a tomb-like earth grave.
Earth tombs in North America
In North America it is widespread, sometimes recommended or even required not to bury the coffin directly in the ground, but to provide it with an over-container: an earth tomb. The modern cemeteries in North America are often meadows without grave borders, with mostly simple occupancy, flat grave slabs or low headstones, rarely with larger grave monuments. The main purpose of the covering or covering is to prevent the ground from collapsing or sinking under the pressure of the surrounding earth and the weight of the visitors walking on it or the machines moving on it after the coffin has decomposed. The earth tomb is used to maintain the cemetery.
Various names are used for the crypt: burial vault ("funeral crypt ") or burial container ("funeral container ") - or burial liner ("burial ceiling") or grave liner (" burial ceiling ") if the cover is less expensive . Functionally, the earth tomb is a single tomb covered with earth. The lower part of the container is inserted into the excavated earth shaft. After the coffin has been brought in, the lid is put on. The alternatively used cover is slipped over the coffin lowered into the earth shaft, it has no lower part. The burial is complete when the earth shaft is backfilled.
If the earth is washed away during floods, the earth tomb mostly remains in the ground and does not float. The coffin and corpse are preserved longer, especially if they are completely wrapped when they are sealed. However, earth tombs are not designed to prevent the remains from decaying. The container does not protect against water, dirt or dust.
Today's funeral industry and the usual burial techniques developed after the Civil War (1861-1865). At that time bricks were used. Two-piece concrete casings were used from the late 1880s. Since the late 1920s, these were covered with asphalt to protect the coffin against moisture. In addition to earthen tombs made of concrete or stone, there are now manufacturers who work with steel, fiberglass or plastic.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Crypt. In: Digital dictionary of the German language .
- ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang Stöcker: The last rooms. Death and funeral culture in the Rhineland since the late 18th century. Cologne 2006, pp. 83-84 ( [1] ).
- ↑ a b Friedhöfe Wien: Graves for burial of coffins and urns , accessed on January 25, 2013.
- ↑ Duden online: Crypt , meaning 2.
- ↑ a b Christopher R. Seddon: The inscribed monuments of the lords and barons of Hackledt in the context of the German inscriptions. Vienna 2002, p. 48 ff.
- ↑ Types of funeral bestatter.ch.
- ↑ Hereditary funeral . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 5, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1906, p. 887 .
- ^ Friedhöfe Wien: Types of graves , accessed on January 25, 2013.