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[German Version] The word grave (OE graef) refers to a special place for receiving the dead. A cavity dug for the purpose or a natural depression can receive the corpse or, in the case of a two-staged burial, remnants of cremation or exposure. Graves serve as a long-term repository for the dead. Deliberate care for the dead witnesses to a dimension beyond life as a constituent of transcendental orientations. The oldest known grave is dated to 100,000 years ago (Qafzeh, Israel) and attributed to Homo sapiens; evidence suggests that Homo neanderthalensis began to bury their dead ritual…

[German Version] I. History – II. Graveyard/Cemetery Art – III. Practical Theology – IV. Judaism – V. Islam I. History The early Christians called their burial sites coemeteria (cemetery, Fr. cimetière, Ital. cimietiero; Burial: V). In the Middle Ages, the churchyard was commonly used for burials; in the 16th and 17th centuries, a burial site outside the city or town was often called “God's acre.” Temporary plague cemeteries were already established in the 14th century. Only after the Reformation, how-¶ ever, were general burial sites established in great numbers. Alon…

[German Version] (Gk μαυσωλῖον/ mausōleíon, Lat. mausoleum) originally referred to the sumptuous burial complex of the Carian ruler Mausolus (reign: 377–353 bce), a satrap of the Persian Great King, in the middle of his capital Halicarnassus. The roughly 50 m high funerary structure, which was completed by his wife Artemisia, is documented by Pliny the Elder and Vitruvius, as well as by British excavations undertaken in 1856, and is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The mausoleum was destroyed by an earthquake …