The research combined the development of survey tools and interdisciplinary cooperation to investigate the material culture of cemeteries, as well as related cultural practices, in the present, past and future. The project undertook spatial analysis to map current states of cemeteries, used archival studies to reconstructing past practices and explored future trends, based on expert and ethnographical interviews. The project was funded by the National Research Fund, Luxembourg and ran from 2015 to 2018.
Team: Elisabeth Boesen, Paul Braconnier, Geoffrey Caruso, Carole Graffé, Alain Graas, Sonja Kmec, Thomas Kolnberger, Aline Schiltz, Wolfgang Schmid, Christoph K. Streb (University of Luxembourg) with Cyrille Medard de Chardon, Robert L. Philippart and Antoinette Reuter.
Recent selected publications
Kmec, A. Reuter & R.L. Philippart (eds) (2019) Ewige Ruhe? Grabkulturen in Luxemburg und den Nachbarregionen/Concessions à Perpétuité? Cultures Funéraires au Luxembourg et dans les Régions Voisines, Luxembourg: Capybara Books (open access online since 2021).
Kolnberger, T. (2018) ‘Cemeteries and urban form: a historicogeographical approach’, Urban Morphology, 22:2, 119-140.
Kolnberger, T., Streb, C., and Kmec, S. (2019) ‘The material culture of burial and its microgeography: a Luxembourg cemetery as a methodological example of an object-centred approach to quantitative material culture studies’, Journal of Material Culture, 24:3, 334-359.
