Tulcán Cemetery
Coordinates: 0 ° 48 ′ 41.8 ″ N , 77 ° 43 ′ 6.6 ″ W.
The Tulcán Cemetery , renamed José María Azael Franco Guerrero Cemetery in 2005 , is a cemetery in Tulcán , Carchi Province , Ecuador, known for its topiary .
description
The cemetery is located in the northwest of Tulcán and is operated by the city. On the eight hectare site, about half of which is taken up by gardens, there are 12,400 grave sites in columbaria , burial mounds and mausoleums.
Due to the location of the cemetery at an altitude of almost 3000 m in the Andes , there is an unusual coolness for Ecuador all year round. The subsoil of the cemetery area consists of calcareous soils, which favor the growth of plants such as cypresses . Today the cemetery includes over 300 complex topiary figures, which are divided into two areas: the Altar de Dios (Altar of God), whose topiary features have historical motifs, and the Parque de los Recuerdos (Park of Memories), which shows the flora and fauna of Ecuador thematized. The Tulcán cemetery is one of the most successful topiary gardens in the world.
In the cemetery are the mausoleums of Charles Roussell and Polidori Espinosi, who took part in a geodetic expedition in France in 1900 to measure the equator in Ecuador.
- Examples of shaped cuts
history
The cemetery was established outside the city in 1932 to avoid epidemics. The cemetery complex had become necessary because the old cemetery complex with a pantheon on the Santiago Hill was badly damaged in the 1923 earthquake.
In 1936, José María Azael Franco Guerrero had gardens laid out in the cemetery as director of the urban parks in Tulcán. Cypress bushes were planted and pruned according to his ideas from the age of 10. He was inspired by motifs from ancient Egypt , ancient Rome , the Incas and Aztecs . His focus was the representation of the native flora and fauna, whereby the Galapagos Islands were also taken into account, as well as the regional Quechua culture.
On May 28, 1984, the Ecuadorian Heritage Institute declared the cemetery gardens to be a national heritage site . In the same year, the state tourism authority recognized the gardens as a natural site of national tourist interest . After the death of Josè Maria Azael Franco in 1985, responsibility for the gardens in the cemetery passed to his son Benigno Salvador Franco Carranco, who had helped his father with the ornamentation since he was a child. In 2005, by resolution of the city council, the cemetery complex was renamed the José María Azaél Franco Guerrero cemetery .
In 2007, a fire, likely caused by magical rituals that took place there, wreaked havoc on the cemetery.
In 2009 the city authorities restored the cemetery and installed lighting for its nighttime illumination. On the annual Day of the Dead , the cemetery has up to 40,000 visitors who visit the graves.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tulcán, destino turístico en medio de cipreses y tumbas . El Universo, October 30, 2012, accessed April 5, 2018.
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↑ Michele Lent Hirsch: Five of the World's Most Fascinating Topiary Gardens . Smithsonian Magazine, August 17, 2015, accessed April 5, 2018.
Karen Catchpole: Is This the World's Most Interesting Border Crossing? , Atlas Obscura, April 20, 2015, accessed April 5, 2018. - ↑ El Cementerio de Tulcán cumple 31 años como Patrimonio Cultural del Ecuador . El Comercio, May 28, 2015, accessed April 5, 2018.
- ↑ Tulcán, destino turístico en medio de cipreses y tumbas . El Universo, October 30, 2012, accessed April 5, 2018.
- ↑ El Cementerio de Tulcán cumple 31 años como Patrimonio Cultural del Ecuador . El Comercio, May 28, 2015, accessed April 5, 2018.
- ^ Sergio C. Fanjul: Cementerios para dar la vuelta al mundo . El País, March 6, 2018, accessed April 5, 2018.
- ↑ Tulcán, destino turístico en medio de cipreses y tumbas . El Universo, October 30, 2012, accessed April 5, 2018.