A Walk Amonst the Dead

I wanted to do a kind of spooky post today in honor of Halloween and thought a recent photo and grave rubbing expedition to Eyup Cemetery would fit the bill. Until I started reading about Ottoman cemeteries.

Clockwise from top: fez, Sufi hat, fez, & turban

An Ottoman graveyard was created in such a way that it was to be a garden where people could wander peacefully without morbid thoughts. Morbid or peaceful doesn't matter to me; I love me a graveyard. There's an old one near where I grew up and when we were kids my sister, brother, and I would bike to it often. Somewhat creepily it does lie right next to what is now a fairly popular campground. The majority of the graves are old, 19th century, and we'd often speculate as to how people died. Especially when an entire family died within a year of each other.

I suppose there is a kind of peace to that cemetery; if a bit of a spooky one. With people that long dead there are few, if any, family members to tend to graves and nature is beginning to reclaim the land. The cemetery in Eyup is facing similar problems despite new burials every year. But even with knocked down headstones, broken steps, and overgrown underbrush it maintains the charms it must have once had. The old stones are carved with Ottoman Turkish but even if you cannot read the script, the decorations give some indication as to the person beneath; sex, rank, and even the number of children someone may have had are recorded on the stone. For example: the size of a turban* reflected a gentleman's status; fezes mark pashas or public servants, a particular kind of hat indicates someone belonging to the Sufi order, and women's graves are carved with flowers; one for each child.

Wandering through the cemetery to the famous Pierre Loti cafe at the top of the hill isn't the only way to find peace in Eyup. This small area of Istanbul is, despite if having been left outside the city walls, one of the most religiously important places for Turkish and non Turkish Muslims. Mehmet the Conqueror contracted the (original) mosque built here in honor of his standard bearer Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (aka Eyup Sultan), close companion to the Prophet Muhammad. Prominent Ottomans wanted graves close to his tomb and mosque and thus was the cemetery created.

Eyup is a charming bastion of quiet away from the bustle and hustling of Sultanahmet and I like to come here from time to time to enjoy the city from afar. The mosque is currently undergoing renovation but that doesn't detract from the peacefulness of the village square, the cemetery, or the amazing view from the Pierre Loti cafe. And if you're not into cemeteries like I am; or you just don't want to walk up; there's always the cable car!

Eyup Sultan Camii

Eyup Sultan Camii

So be it spooky or not...Happy Halloween!

*No gravestones after the 1829 ban feature turbans.

Lyman Parks 1917-2009

May he rest in eternal peace. We miss you Grandpa.

Death Brings New Life

So as Andrea told you, a few weeks ago we went to St. Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery. It's an extremely old city cemetery that has some amazing art and architecture. I've always been fascinated by the way different cultures revere their dead, and even moreso, how the art and architecture around said reverence changes over time. Since Andrea did such a good job covering all the bases on the different types of sculpture and headstones in the cemetery, I thought I would do something a little less morbid to end the month of the dead.
At the cemetery, there were lots and lots of mausoleums all over the grounds. There were some built into the earth, and many were just freestanding buildings. The majority of them had beautiful stained glass windows that captured the light just perfectly. I was pretty amazed that considering many of the graves went back to the early-mid 19th century, the windows were still in such great condition.



This one was a favorite of mine that day. I loved the way the sun hit the colors and really made them "pop." One thing I didn't notice about the shot until I uploaded my digitals was the cross shadow on the right side of the glass. Beautiful!


Finally, now that we're ending The Month of the Dead, I think that it's appropriate that I leave you with the next picture since we're heading into Advent. The next 25 days are days of hopeful waiting and watching. May this coming season be a time one of hope and joy as we, like the Three Wise Men keep watch for the coming of the Christ Child.

Photo of the Day: Light and Shadow

There are only a couple of more days left in The Month of the Dead, so I wanted to post this picture while there was still time. I will likely try to round out the rest of the month tomorrow with the pictures that I also took at St. Paul's Episcopal Cemetery. In the meantime, the above is my contribution for today.

I took this last summer at the country's smallest battlefield cemetery-- Fort Stevens National Battlefield Cemetery. There are 40 Union graves there, and it is one of the few where they are all identified. This cemetery is actually around the corner (and a few blocks down the street) from our house, and so is what's left of the battlefield. The battlefield site is the only one where the Commander in Chief (re: President Abraham Lincoln) was present for the battle. Union forces were desperately trying to defend Washington, DC, and as was custom at the time, old Abe wanted to watch. From the letters that he wrote later, they say that supposedly he was almost killed, but mesmerized by the scene.

Sony CyberShot 7.2MP, Digital Format

Saint Paul's Episcopol

To wind down our Month of the Dead theme, Lauren and I finally paid a visit to St. Paul's Episcopal cemetery. Located on North Cap and Hawaii we've been catching glimpses inside this cemetery for years and have been wanting to pay a visit...well a couple weekends ago we finally managed to do it.

St. Paul's is huge. Like hugely huge. And, despite it's Episcopalian nature, was very diverse in the types of monuments it contained-in particular the very Russian Orthodox crosses and mausoleums. I was especially inters ted in the various human and angel images.







I also spotted the following and I'm not really sure how to describe it...an Ankh with an angel face? And stones? I sure wish I could meet whomever had this erected and find out if the dead person was multi-cultural/multi-religious that so many icons got smooshed together:



And this one was just creepy-haunting







And my favorite which I decided looked best in black and white:







And, as expected in a cemetery as old as this one, there were small sections scattered here and there with old-fashioned tombstones, many of them worn away and smooth, broken, sunk into the earth, or even fallen over.





So, even though the Month of the Dead is ending, my cemetery posts more than likely will not. I got a lot of good shots that I want to share and I'm hoping to visit one of my favorite cemeteries when I go back to Michigan for Christmas.

Belgrade Cemetery

So finishing up the large catch-all cemetery in Belgrade.



I thought one of the best things about the overtly Orthodox sections were the colorful tombs and gravemarkers. Not that we Catholics are terribly plain (although the more modern cemeteries generally are) but the use of color on some of these was really impressive.





I also enjoyed some of the more unusal markers. I would really like to know the story behind this one:



And the yet to be engraved markers were fascinating both because of how shiny and new the marble was but also because even though there may not be anyone buried there yet, the certainty that someone would be was somewhat overwhelming when viewing the rows upon rows of uncut markers.



Maybe even though no one's in there yet people have bought the plots. It's pretty amazing really the forethought that has to go into funerals. I guess a lot of people think some things are a given...if you belong to a church that has its own cemetery that's where you're buried. Not necessarily so I have learned. You do have to buy your plot. My parents already have plots at the family church cemetery in C'ville. They bought them (I love this) on sale. Yep...on sale. I believe this was when St. Mike's first opened their cemetery and were trying to sell plots? In any case, my parents are set for plots but then there's everything else to be considered. I took a Death and Dying course at university and we all had to plan the funeral of a loved one. I killed off my mom for the project and it actually ended up being, not only an interestnig and emotional exercise, but a useful one. I'm pretty sure I've got that saved somewhere as we planned the readings, the music, the stipulation that, should (great) Aunt Tobe still be alive (which by now she's not) she was not to be allowed to sing but that a week after the funeral we are to throw a party and Uncle Tone's band Replay is to play. We've also been instructed to under no circumstances take my mom's body to Throop's Funeral Home in C'ville. And my mom understands if none of the three of us want to speak at the funeral/give a eulogy but she would like it if we did.

That Brave and Fallen Few

(Ghosts of War, Manassas Battlefield Park)

I believe that there is no coincidence that the day that the whole world remembers their fallen occurs during the Month of the Dead.

At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of the year 1918, an armistice was forged between the Allies and Germany during The Great War (WWI). The war wouldn't be formally ended until June 28, 1919. November 11 became known as Armistice Day, and today we know it as Veteran's Day. It's a day that the entire world has set aside to honor those who have fallen fighting under their country's colors, for their cause of what they've belived to be the greater good. Because Veterans Day didn't come along until WWI, there were no 'days of rememberance' for soldiers that fell in battle in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is interesting to me that prior to The Great War, there were no real monuments to wars fought in the US. Perhaps when the wars were still fresh in people's minds, they still managed to remember their fathers and sons that were lost fighting in the Revolutionary War, French and Indian War, Civil War, or others. Only the battlefield cemeteries themselves stand as reminders of those who fell during those tumultuous times. What I find interesting is that while our National Battlefield Cemeteries memorialize soldiers from the very different battles that were fought on or near those grounds there, they all have many similar characteristics.

On every battleground, there are placards inscribed with portions of a poem written for Kentucky troops fallen in the 1847 Mexican war by Captain Theodore O'Hara. I have many pictures from various battlefields that display portions of the poem. Just like many of our national parks are falling into disrepair, so are our battlefield parks and their ornaments. Of those that I've seen, I've put them in order below, but since it's quite a lengthy poem, I have not included it in its entirety.

(reinactors, Manassas Battlefield Park)

Where those placards are difficult to read because of age and wear, I have added the words:

Bivouac of the Dead -Capt. Theodore O'Hara

On fame's eternal camping ground

Their silent tents to spread,

And glory guards, with solemn round

The bivouac of the dead

...

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground

Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound

Along the heedless air.

...

Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!

Dear as the blood ye gave;

No impious footstep here shall tread

The herbage of your grave;

Nor shall your glory be forgot

While Fame her record keeps,

For honor points the hallowed spot

Where valor proudly sleeps.

...

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone

In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanquished ago has flown,

The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,

Nor time's remorseless doom,

Can dim one ray of glory's light

That gilds your deathless tomb.

(the pictures used in this post were taken in 2005, 2006, and 2007 at Manassas, Gettysburg, and Fort Stevens National Battlefield Parks. All are Civil War-era Battlefields)