Tomb

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Igeler column , tomb of a Roman family

A tomb (mhd. Meil "sign") is a memorial and memorial at the grave of a dead person. The most common shapes are tombstones , tombstones and grave crosses . An architecturally designed tomb can be part of a grave or a grave structure. Tombs in the broader sense are burial mounds , burial chapels , burial houses and burial chambers .

history

Prehistory and early history

The custom of erecting tombs can only be documented with certainty in Europe for the Neolithic Age (after 6000 BC). The menhir , an upright, uncut, high stone of cultic significance was also erected on or next to graves. They can be found in England, France and Germany, occasionally as perforated stones . Figure menhirs, stone slabs with relief figures in human form, are found in southern France and Corsica. The simplest form of megalithic graves (Gr. "Large stone graves") is the dolmen , a prehistoric grave structure under a mighty capstone, which was previously vaulted by a mound.

In Egypt, since the beginning of the Old Kingdom (approx. 2800 BC), the pyramid has been the shape of the royal tomb and the mastaba the tomb for high officials. In the prehistory of the Mediterranean area, the dome grave was widely used as a form of the princely grave. Since the late 16th century BC Developed in the Mycenaean culture , these can be found from Spain in the west to Asia Minor. The most beautiful and best preserved representative of this type is the tomb in Mycenae, known as the treasure house of Atreus . In addition to the dome graves built into a slope with a stone dome over a circular floor plan, there are the chamber graves . These tombs, carved in the rock or in the earth, come in numerous forms; the deeply buried are called shaft graves .

Antiquity

Until the time of Hellenism (4th – 1st century BC) Greek culture did not have any architecturally designed tombs. The grave site was marked by a statue on a pedestal or by a grave stele , a stone slab set up with a relief image of the deceased surrounded by his family. These tombs, some of which are artistically valuable, were built in the 4th century BC. Banned as a grave luxury and replaced by marble grave vases (amphora), slender jug-shaped vessels that are sometimes decorated with depictions of the grave cult. Larger grave reliefs only reappeared in Greece under Roman rule (after 146 BC).

In the 6th century BC In Asia Minor, a form of tower grave developed, a grave chamber with reliefs on a high stone pillar ( harpy tomb near Xanthos in Lycia ). Later, a raised sarcophagus was surrounded by a stone enclosure decorated in relief (Gjölbaschi in Lycia). From the union of these two types, the burial temple was created on a high base with relief decoration ( Nereid monument of Xanthos ). This new type included the tomb of King Mausolos of Caria († 353 BC), the mausoleion or mausoleum , which gave the name to all later monumental tombs. The forms of the tower grave and the grave temple have spread in the Roman ruled Mediterranean area; the tombs on the Via Appia near Rome and the tomb of Theodoric in Ravenna are examples of this. There are monuments based on the old circular grave , for example the Augustus mausoleum and the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, which was started as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian († 138 AD) . In ancient Rome, the tombstone was a funerary monument to the soldier who had perished in the distance. The stone slab with the bust of the deceased in relief is usually placed in the niche of a grave building. Occasionally, in addition to old mythological themes, the life of the dead is depicted in a relief frieze ( Igel column ). On the other hand, since Roman times, in contrast to the grave, memories have been kept alive in the cenotaph ; it contains no remains.

With the Etruscans and in early Christian times, the dead are buried in catacombs . In the walls of the underground passages, rectangular burial niches are carved into the rock next to and one above the other. They were closed by a stone slab with the name of the deceased. The sarcophagus , a mostly elaborately decorated coffin, was in use by almost all peoples of ancient times. The type of the Etruscan sarcophagus decorated in relief is adopted and varied by the Romans . The early Christians added their symbols to the pagan-Roman sarcophagus and soon also new motifs.

middle Ages

In the Middle Ages the church is the place for the artistically designed tomb. Originally there was only the martyr's grave in the crypt , then high clergy, founders and donors were also buried. The graves in the choir and in other areas of the church followed. Grave slabs form the oldest and numerically largest group of tombs. Made of stone or bronze , they cover the deceased's grave. The inscription tells of his name and the day of his death, the coat of arms attests to his origin. In the case of the Tumba , the grave slab is not set into the ground, but lies above the grave on a rectangular stone substructure. Later, the tumba has a sarcophagus-like structure and is often covered by a canopy . In Germany, the figure of the dead has been depicted on the grave slab sporadically since the 11th century, then in increasing numbers. The tomb gained artistic importance. The bronze grave plate of Rudolf von Schwaben († 1080) in Merseburg Cathedral is the earliest surviving example. The double grave of Henry the Lion and his wife in the Brunswick Cathedral (1230–1240) is an outstanding testimony to the increasing physicality and naturalness of the figures .

In France the art of tombs did not develop until the 13th century. The development becomes clear in the choir of the cathedral of Saint-Denis , in which from now on the French kings were buried. In England, too, the grave figure has a large share in traditional medieval sculpture. In Italy, the design of the tomb has been more and more elaborate since the late 13th century, and the idea of ​​fame and honor of the deceased is gaining in importance ( Scaliger graves in Verona ). In the 14th century the figure of the deceased is fully sculpted ( Przemyslid tombs in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague ).

Tomb for Günther von Passow in Güstrow Cathedral by Charles Philippe Dieussart (approx. 1659)

The Tumba got a new face in the 14th century: plaintive figures ( pleurants ) appear on its walls in relief. Later they walk around the tumba with a sculptural design, or they carry the plate with the reclining figure of the dead ( Claus Sluter , tomb of Philip the Bold in Dijon ). In Germany, another type of tomb appeared towards the end of the century, the epitaph as a grave monument. The wall tomb , widespread in Italy and France, took on the character of a secular monument in the second half of the 15th century ( Santa Croce and San Miniato al Monte in Florence ). In Germany, the tomb of Duke Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg is an example.

At this time, tombs were not part of the remembrance options of broad sections of the population. From the Middle Ages to the early modern period they were reserved for the ecclesiastical and secular upper classes. With the peak in the 16th century, the death shield of the deceased with coat of arms and inscription was found as a memorial plaque in a church or chapel without the body lying there.

Modern times

Classicist-romantic grave architecture: the grave of the leather manufacturer Söhlmann in the St. Nicolai churchyard in Hanover , Rudolf Wiegmann , 1835

Since the end of the 16th century, the transience of everything earthly has been emphasized on tombs; death is pictorially represented as a bone man. The thought of the horrors of death determines the baroque period as well as the endeavor to be representative . That changed in the late 18th century. Since then, the feelings of the bereaved in mourning have been expressed in allegorical scenes and in the inscription, and the bone man is replaced by the gentle angel who cares for the soul of the deceased. Since the end of the 18th century, artistically designed tombs were rarely erected in the churches of the north; aristocrats and clergymen were mostly buried in the cemetery.

Gravestones are subject to influences such as secular architecture, the designs for the design of the gravestones follow classicism and the tendencies of romanticism. Columns, pyramids , steles and cippi with decorative objects become contemporary tombs. The often individual artistic design gives way to a variety of type grave markings from catalogs of industrial production. In spite of this, elaborate grave structures were erected until after 1900 to represent the grave owners. It was only the reform movements at the beginning of the 20th century that caused changes in the design of the tombs, which previously focused on family representation. The introduction of cremation with urn grave markings and columbaria plays a special role . In the 1920s, a new form of urn burial emerged, in which rows of walls were planned and built. These are low walls with an inscribed plaque in front of which the urn is buried. The urban urn grove in Dresden- Tolkewitz shows a special example of this type due to Paul Wolf's expansion plans , of which only parts have been preserved.

In the second half of the 20th century, the row grave with uniform grave monuments gained importance. The most recent developments are semi-anonymous community graves , whereby the tomb is used for a group of buried people and provided with their names. There are two developments in the sepulchral culture of the beginning of the 21st century, on the one hand designer tombs with expressive solutions and on the other hand the complete renunciation of individual memorials. A special form of modern tomb designs sometimes results from grave sponsorships, in which an existing, no longer occupied grave complex is re-assigned and can be carefully changed in individual cases.

literature

  • Thorsten Benkel, Matthias Meitzler: Allow me to lie down. Unusual tombstones. A journey through today's cemeteries . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-462-04608-3 .
  • Tanja Müller-Jonak: English grave monuments of the Middle Ages. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-88609-602-2 .
  • Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal (Ed.): Grave culture in Germany. History of the tombs . Reimer, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-496-02824-6 , p. 233. - Table of contents online (PDF; 0.3 MB).
  • Tanja Michalsky : Memoria and Representation. The tombs of the Anjou royal family in Italy (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History. Vol. 157). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-35473-8 (also: Munich, Univ., Diss., 1995).
  • Magdalene Magirius: Figural tombs in Saxony and Thuringia from 1080 to around 1400. Edition Rust, Esens 2002, ISBN 3-936492-02-6 . (At the same time: Dissertation. Free University of Berlin , Berlin 2000).
  • Gabriele Böhm: Medieval figural tombs in Westphalia from the beginnings to 1400. LIT-Verlag, Münster / Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-89473-511-2 . (At the same time: Dissertation. University of Münster in Westphalia , Münster 1991).
  • Gerlinde Volland: Mourning in a female form. Grave sculpture around 1900 using the example of the Melaten cemetery in Cologne. In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland . Issue 1/1998, ISSN  0177-2619 .

Web links

Commons : Tomb  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: tomb  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reiner Sörries : Inscriptions and symbols on grave marks. In: Grabkultur in Deutschland , p. 233.
  2. ↑ Little Chronicle. [... New artistic grave monuments. ] In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 16598/1910, November 6, 1910, p. 12, center left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  3. ↑ Gerold Eppler: The effects of industrialization on the tomb culture. In: Grabkultur in Deutschland , pp. 127–149.
  4. ^ Helmut Schoenfeld: Reform graves of the early 20th century. In: Grabkultur in Deutschland , pp. 163–178.
  5. ↑ Norbert Fischer: Ash tombs and ash systems of modern cremation. In: Grave Culture in Germany , p. 158.
  6. ↑ Christine Spitzhofer: The cemetery regulations, guidelines and cemetery statutes from 1911-1940 and 1945-2006. In: 100 years of the crematorium and urn grove Dresden-Tolkewitz. Under the wings of the phoenix. 1911-2011 . Beucha, Sax-Verlag, Markkleeberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86729-080-7 , pp. 93-99. - Table of contents  (PDF; 0.26 MB).
  7. ↑ Barbara Leisner: The community grave . In: Grabkultur in Deutschland , pp. 260–261.
  8. ↑ Norbert Fischer: Glass tomb urn pyramid-tree burial: About the new burial culture at the beginning of the 21st century. In: Grabkultur in Deutschland , pp. 397–405.