Unusual Death and Memorialization: Burial, Space, and Memory in the Post-Medieval North

by Titta Kallio-Sepp (Editor), Sanna Lipkin (Editor), Tiina V re (Editor), Ulla Moilanen (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800736023
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	08/12/2022
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

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.

Sanna Lipkin is UniversityResearcher at the University of Oulu, Finland. She specializes in the past childhood, funerary archaeology and textile research.

Tiina Väre is a post-doctoral researcher (Academy of Finland) at the University of Oulu, Finland. Her main fields of specialty are related to osteology, paleopathology, mummy studies, historical burial culture, and stable isotopes.

Ulla Moilanen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland, specialized in burial practices in Early Medieval and Medieval Finland.

Annemari Tranberg (PhD) is an archaeologist and macrofossil researcher. She specializes in environmental and historical archaeology, archeoentomology, garden history, industrial environments, and culture of death. She works as an archaeologist at the Museum of Tornio Valley.

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

“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

From the Publisher