Mineral Contamination from Cemetery Soils: Case Study of Zandfontein Cemetery, South Africa

Mineral Contamination from Cemetery Soils: Case Study of Zandfontein Cemetery, South Africa

The burial of coffins may pose an environmental and health hazard since the metals that are used in coffin-making may corrode or degrade into harmful toxins. These may leach into the surrounding soils and groundwater. Very little research has been conducted world-wide on the mineral contamination potential of cemeteries, and virtually none in South Africa. The aim of the study is to determine w...

Removing the Noise from Cemetery Headstones

Many approaches exist for alphanumeric data acquisition from images, however very few make mention of engraved text and none to the knowledge of the author make mention of cemetery headstones. The ability to extract the textual information found on headstones is of great importance due to the valuable historical information that is, in most cases, authoritative and unique to that stone. Multipl...

Le Morne Cemetery: Archaeological Investigations

De®ning 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 speci®c 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 speci®cally demarcated sites of burial, with an ordered internal layout that is conducive both to families c...

The Cemetery and the Creation of Place

Throughout most recorded history, human societies have used various types of cemeteries for burial purposes; this theme points to humanity’s need to construct a meaning behind death and reflect life into the places where the dead are interred. Whether the bodies of the deceased are placed in the ground, within elaborate tombs, or simply in the presence of ancient or contemporary monuments, thei...