cenotaph
A cenotaph (rarely Cenotaph or cenotaph ; Neuter; from ancient Greek κενοτάφιον kenotáphion , German , empty tomb, cenotaph (whose body has not been found for a in a foreign deceased) ' from κενός Keno , German , empty' and τάφος Taphos , German 'Grave' ), also known as a sham grave , is a badge of honor for one or more dead. In contrast to the grave , it is used exclusively for memory and does not contain any mortal remains. Several cenotaphs can be grouped together in the manner of a necropolis . From garden design term assessment certificate graves are as apparent cemetery called. Widespread in Christian art are holy graves as replicas of the tomb of Christ .
history
The first so-called cenotaphs were simple tombs in memory of the dead whose bones could not be found; the Roman faith commanded the manes to appease by this fiction. At the consecration of such a mark, the deceased was called three times by name and invited to live in the empty grave. The same thing happened when an honored dead person was buried far from home. In such a case, the relatives or fellow citizens of the hometown erected for him a sometimes very magnificent memorial. The cenotaph was also called the tomb, which was built and set up for oneself and one's own during one's lifetime.
A special form of the cenotaph is the ancient heroon , a sanctuary often dedicated to the legendary founder of a city, which was regarded as the tomb of the hero .
Cenotaphs as pure cenotaphs and memorial buildings were also common in antiquity. Well-known examples are:
- Cenotaph of Dexileos in Kerameikos in Athens
- Cenotaph of Teiresias in Thebes
- Cenotaph of Gaius Caesar in Limyra
- Cenotaph of Drusus in Mainz
India
Due to the tradition of cremation practiced in India for millennia and the simultaneous desire for a worthy commemoration of the dead, memorials were created early on, the oldest (known) form of which is the Buddhist stupa . This sometimes also contained relics (mostly ashes, teeth and fragments of bones) of the Buddha or his first disciples. After the invasion of Islam , the first domed mausoleums were built, under which that of Iltutmish (r. 1211-1236) protrudes, whose marble cenotaph (the actual grave is underground) stands out from the surrounding red sandstone building . This Islamic tradition of mock graves goes back to the late Mughal period (e.g. Taj Mahal ). From 16./17. Century originated in the of Hindu - Maharaja dominated regions of North West India (especially in Rajasthan ) numerous memorials ( chhatris ) on the pyres of their respective rulers.
Well-known cenotaphs
Cenotaph for Isaac Newton
A significant cenotaph for Isaac Newton in architectural history was designed in 1784 by the French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée . The 150 m high sphere symbolizes the sphere of the universe, inside the starry sky is represented by perforations on the spherical surface. This - unrealized - design is considered the climax of the utopian revolutionary architecture . A model made of alabaster plaster on a scale of 1: 400 is in Unger's archive for architectural studies . It was designed as a reconstruction by the qualified designer and architectural model maker Bernd Grimm and belongs to the architectural icon collection of the architect Oswald Mathias Ungers .
London cenotaph
A famous cenotaph (The Cenotaph) is located in London in the borough of Westminster , the government district, on the middle of Whitehall near the junction with Downing Street (the Prime Minister's residence ). It was built between 1919 and 1920 by Sir Edwin Lutyens .
It is a monument made of Portland stone with no decorations. On both sides is a carved victory wreath with the words The Glorious Dead (" The Glorious Dead "). The place is adorned by the flags of the United Kingdom , the Royal Navy , the British Army , the Royal Air Force and the merchant fleet. The monarch , the prime minister , the high commissioners and veterans honor the fallen of the wars every year on Remembrance Sunday - that is the Sunday closest to November 11th - with a wreath-laying ceremony at 11 a.m.
Hiroshima cenotaph
In memory of the victims of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima , a cenotaph ( Japanese広 島 平和 都市 記念 碑, Hiroshima heiwa toshi kinenhi ' ) was erected in the Peace Park - between the Peace Museum and the atomic bomb dome . The base under the vault-like construction bears the inscription 安 ら か に 眠 っ て 下 さ い 過 ち は 繰 返 し ま せ ぬ か ら ( Yasuraka ni nemutte kudasai, ayamachi wa kurikaeshimasenu kara, “Please rest in peace, because the mistakes are not repeated, because the” errors are not repeated English translation:
“Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil "
“Let all souls rest here in peace; because we [= humanity] don't want to repeat evil [= war] "
It contains a list of all (known) atomic bomb victims. It is continued to this day as part of a ceremony with the names of people who died from the sequelae of radiation. As of August 6, 2015, there were 108 volumes with a total of 297,684 entries.
"Cenotaphs" in prehistory and early history
In prehistory and early history, the term was transferred to grave-like findings without skeletal remains and corpses , which were classified as empty graves. In particular, pits or shafts with objects within cemeteries or burial fields were considered “grave-like”. Such findings are now often classified as deposits .
- In some British long beds - despite the best preservation conditions - no skeletal material was found, as in South Street near Beckhampton in Wiltshire .
- In the cemetery of Varna , the dumping of grave goods without skeletons was interpreted as cenotaphs.
- The Elbe-Havel Germans of the Roman Empire and the Anglo-Saxons ( Sutton Hoo , 625 AD) knew mock graves; the Vikings continued this tradition.
- A special feature are the Irish cenotaphs called Leachtanna cuimhne , which only occur on the Aran island of Inishmore and date from the 17th to 18th centuries. Century.
literature
-
Günter Behm-Blancke : Culture and tribal history of the Elbe-Havel Germans of the 3rd – 5th centuries Century. Sacrifice and magic in the Germanic village of the Roman Empire. (New excavation results) (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 38). Edited by Jan Bemmann , Morten Hegewisch. Beier & Beran, Langenweissbach 2005, ISBN 3-937517-09-X ; contains the dissertation Berlin 1943 and the habilitation thesis Jena 1948:
- Sacrifice and magic in the Germanic village of the Roman Empire, new excavation results. Weimar 1948, DNB 480502714 (habilitation thesis, University of Jena, April 6, 1948, 86 pages).
- Culture and tribal history of the Elbe- Havel Germans from the 3rd to 5th century (= Mannus library ). Berlin 1943, DNB 571950892 (dissertation at the University of Berlin 1943, 143 pages).
- Hans Bonnet: Cenotaph. In: Hans Bonnet: Lexicon of the Egyptian religious history. 3rd, unchanged edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , p. 374 f.
- Gerald Görmer: On the problem of the so-called grave depots and cenotaphs. In: Ethnographic-Archaeological Journal - EAZ. 48, 2007, pp. 419-423.
- Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto : Cenotaph. In: Wolfgang Helck, Eberhard Otto: Small Lexicon of Egyptology. 4th revised edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04027-0 , p. 143.
See also
Web links
- The Cenotaph of London
- The history of the Cenotaph. (No longer available online.) In: bbc.co.uk. BBC , 2002, archived from the original on November 9, 2007 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duden | Cenotaph | Spelling, meaning, definition, origin. Retrieved June 20, 2020 .
- ^ Wilhelm Pape , Max Sengebusch (arrangement): Concise dictionary of the Greek language . 3rd edition, 6th impression. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig 1914 ( zeno.org [accessed on November 13, 2019]).
- ↑ Ungers Archive for Architectural Science. Model workshop. In: ungersarchiv.de. Retrieved June 21, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Peace Memorial Park. In: hiroshima.jp. Retrieved on August 6, 2018 (English, link to number 20. The comments in the translation are taken from the text accompanying the inscription.).
- ↑ Gerald Görmer, in: Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift. 2007, ISSN 0012-7477 , pp. 419, 422.
- ↑ Tom Higham , John Chapman, Vladimir Slavchev, Bisserka Gaydarska, Noah Honch, Yordan Yordanov, Branimira Dimitrov: New perspectives on the Varna cemetery (Bulgaria) - AMS dates and social implications. In: Antiquity . 81, No. 313, ISSN 0003-598X , pp. 640-654, doi: 10.1017 / S0003598X00095636 .
- ^ Paul Gosling: Archaeological Inventory of County Galway. Vol. 1: West Galway (including Connemara and the Aran Islands). Stationery Office, Dublin 1993, ISBN 0-7076-0322-6 , p. 134 ff.
