In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, American culture has experienced a renewed interest in pandemic events, including the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. Based on research carried out in cemeteries and monuments in Salt Lake City, Utah, this paper compares commemoration practices relating to the Spanish Influenza pandemic and the simultaneous events of First World War within the city. Such research provides evidence that warfare enjoys a greater presence in places of social memory than does disease, suggesting an inequality in the cultural value placed on different causes of death. This outcome is the result of numerous factors and continues to impact the relationship between memory, disease, and American society today.

The Brush Arbor Cemetery is an early-to-late 19th century Black cemetery that was also the meeting place of one of the first Black church congregations in Starkville, Mississippi. The cemetery has suffered greatly from structural violence and degradation. Utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), this research has revealed important information about the Brush Arbor Cemetery. The results of the GPR survey suggest there are 54 potential unmarked burials in addition to 35 marked burials. The Viewshed analysis suggests that the likely meeting place of the church congregation is in complete view of the white Odd Fellows Cemetery directly across the street. The Nearest Neighbor Index shows that the remaining headstones are randomly distributed throughout the property, but that the vandalism of these headstones are dispersed indicating that vandals target undamaged headstones on the property. Although this research recognizes the structural violence that has taken place at the Brush Arbor Cemetery it also highlights the ongoing vandalism that continues to transpire on this landscape.

Data extraction from engraved text is discussed rarely, and nothing in the open literature discusses data extraction from cemetery headstones. Headstone images present unique challenges such as engraved or embossed characters (causing inner-character shadows), low contrast with the background, and significant noise due to inconsistent stone texture and weathering. Current systems for extracting text from outdoor environments (billboards, signs, etc.) make assumptions (i.e. clean and/or consistently-textured background and text) that fail when applied to the domain of engraved text. Additionally, the ability to extract the data found on headstones is of great historical value. This thesis describes a novel and efficient feature-based text zoning and segmentation method for the extraction of noisy text from a highly textured engraved medium. Additionally, the usefulness of constraining a problem to a specific domain is demonstrated. The transcriptions of images zoned and segmented through the proposed system result in a precision of 55% compared to 1% precision without zoning, a 62% recall compared to 39%, an F-measure of 58% compared to 2%, and an error rate of 77% compared to 8303%.

No description available.

The inclusion of animal remains in funerary contexts was a routine feature of Anglo-Saxon cremation ritual, and less frequently of inhumations, until the introduction of Christianity during the 7th century. Most interpretation has focused either on the animal as symbolic of identity or as an indication of pagan belief, with little consideration given to the interaction between these two aspects. Animals were a fundamental and ubiquitous part of early medieval society, and their contribution to mortuary practices is considered to be multifaceted, reflecting their multiple roles in everyday life. This project considers the roles of animals in mortuary practice between the 5th-7th centuries across five counties in eastern England – Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex – in both cremation and inhumation rites. Animal remains have been recognised in 5th to 7th century burials in eastern England from an early date, and the quality of the existing archives (both material and written) is investigated and discussed as an integral part of designing a methodology to effectively summarise data across a wide area. From the eastern England dataset, four aspects of identity in mortuary practice are considered in terms of their influence on the role of animals: choice of rite (cremation/inhumation); human biological identity (age & gender); regionality; and changing expressions of belief and status in the 7th century. The funerary role of animals is argued to be based around broadly consistent cosmologies which are locally contingent in their expression and practice. / Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship under the Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme with Norwich Castle Museum as the partner organisation.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>This thesis explores the relationship between landscape and experience in understanding the historical trajectory of cemeteries, their ongoing role in living communities and their contribution to heritage and memory. It constructs a phenomenological history of Hamilton Cemetery, established in 1848 in Hamilton, Ontario, using a combination of material, archival and ethnographic research, in addition to visual media and statistical analyses. In tracing the physical transformations of this cemetery, as a result of fluctuating levels of maintenance, neglect and destruction, it is evident that cemeteries are implicated in the social processes constructing attitudes towards death, the dead, memory and the past.</p> <p>This thesis will explore Hamilton Cemetery’s past to examine the role of commemorative activities, grave visitation, vandalism, recreational activities and heritage. The period from 1848-1950 was one of active use and maintenance of the cemetery landscape, with the frequency and recentness of burial dictating a high level of reverence and maintenance. Between 1950 and 1990, treatment of the cemetery is better characterized by the emergence of vandalism, limited use of the space, and increasing cumulative decay. Finally, from 1990 to the present there has been a resurgence of interest in the cemetery and a transition back into active management and maintenance recognizing its value to local heritage and ecology.</p> <p>From their emergence as pragmatic, formalized social spaces constructed for the dead, to the saturation of the medium and a demographic shift resulting in neglect, to revitalization as a heritage-based collective past, cemeteries represent dynamic components of the landscape.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)