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Most cultures and societies have their own customs and traditions of treating their dead. In the past, some deceased received a burial that deviated from tradition. The reasons for unusual burial could result from reasons such as outbreaks of epidemics or wars, or from premature births, distinctive social status, or disability. Authors present a selection of cases addressing the issue of unusual deaths, burials, or ways to remember the deceased. Chapters explore theoretical views related to social memory of death and memorializing the deceased and their resting places during modern period. The case studies introduce varied views on ‘otherness’ that are visible in burial customs and memorialization.
“The book contains much fascinating and important information and will no doubt inspire further study. As it stands, it is one to recommend to all those interested in the histories of the forgotten.” • Church Moments
“This book full of case studies provides a small but important glimpse into how death, burial and memory are handled in the European north.” • Thomas Hönigmann, Forensic Archaeology Working Group, Vienna
Titta Kallio-Seppä (PhD) works as a Museum Director at the Museum of Tornio Valley, Finland. She specializes in historical archaeology, urban archaeology, dendrochronology, and material culture of churches.
List of Illustrations
Introduction: In Search of Unusual in Early Modern and Modern Burial Traditions
Titta Kallio-Seppä, Sanna Lipkin, Annemari Tranberg, Tiina Väre, and Ulla Moilanen
Memorials, Graveyards, Epidemics: Inequality, Disease and Sudden Death
Chapter 1. Forgotten and Remembered: Unusual Memorial Practices at Buffalo’s old Cemeteries
Sanna Lipkin
Chapter 2. Reactions to Tragedy: Familial and Community Memorials to Sudden Occupational Deaths in Britain and Ireland
Harold Mytum
Chapter 3. Memory of Epidemic Diseases in Finland: Old Disease Cemeteries and Modern Urban Planning
Titta Kallio-Seppä and Tiina Väre
Chapter 4. Freethinkers’ Cemeteries and Local Secular Burial Culture in Finland
Ilona Pajari
Peculiar Burial Places
Chapter 5. Death during retreat – the burials of Carolean soldiers in Jämtland and Trøndelag (Sweden and Norway)
Kristina Jonsson
Chapter 6. Taken to the Island. Temporary Burials in Early and Late Modern Periods in Finnish Periphery
Tiina Väre and Juha Ruohonen
Memories and Folklore of Unusual Death
Chapter 7. “On the Apparitions of Drowned Men”: Folklore and the Memory of Unnatural Death at Haffjarðarey, Western Iceland
Sarah Hoffman
Chapter 8. The Death is Living with Us – Witchcraft at the East Coast of Bothnian Bay during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Annemari Tranberg
Unusual Cause of Death
Chapter 9. The cause of Death – Arsenic or Mercury? Investigation of Human Remains from Entombments in the Moscow Kremlin (Sixteenth – Early Seventeenth Century)
T. D. Panova, A. Yu. Dmitriev, S. B. Borzakov and C. Hramco
Chapter 10. Sawed Skulls - Archaeological Evidence of Medico-legal Autopsies in Finland
Ulla Moilanen, Anne-Mari Liira, Heli Lehto, Kati Salo, Maija Helamaa, and Kari Uotila
Afterword
Milton Núñez
Index