Tag: graves

Sivas and the mysterious grave in the road

Danilo G.

One of the last thing you expect to see in the middle of a regular urban paved street is a grave complete with a large tombstone. But that’s exactly what you’ll see when driving through Sivas, in central Turkey. Yeni Mahalle Hamzaoğlu is one of the several streets that traverse the relatively new Şarkışla district but, at one point, motorists need to make sure that they don’t drive straight into a grave located right in the road. It’s been there for several years now, but only recently gained national attention,…

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Medb’s Cairn: the grave of a mythological Irish queen?

Danijel90

Perched atop the monolithic Irish hill Knocknarea west of Sligo town, lies Medb’s Cairn, in Irish Miosgán Médhbh, a 5,000 year old burial mound, even though no one is quite sure whose it is. It is about 55 metres wide and 10 metres high, making it the largest cairn in Ireland outside the Brú na Bóinne complex in Meath. It is believed to date to around 3000 BCE, and it is a protected National Monument. In recent years, archaeologists have warned that the ancient cairn is being eroded by hikers…

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Grave of W. B. Yeats at St. Columba’s Church, Drumcliffe, Ireland

Danijel90

In the churchyard of St. Columba’s Church, a few miles north of Sligo town, Ireland, William Butler Yeats lies under a remarkably plain gravestone bearing his name, birth and death dates, as well as the last three lines of one of his poems: “cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman, pass by.” He was one of Ireland’s most celebrated poets, and explained the plans for his final resting place the best way he knew how, through poetry. The final verse of “Under Ben Bulben” details the way he…

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Nicolas Cage’s Pyramid Tomb in New Orleans’ oldest cemetery~

Nathan

Actor Nicolas Cage has long been known for his eccentric behavior both in front of the camera and in the real world. Born Nicolas Kim Coppola and nephew of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, he adopted his stage name to avoid nepotism on the job and claims to have gotten inspiration from Marvel superhero, Luke Cage. As interesting as his acting career is, his personal life is equally enigmatic: his celebrity success has allowed him to buy everything, including private islands, dinosaur fossils, English and German castles, shrunken heads,…

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Buried in a Barrel: the story of Captain Sluman Gray~

Leo S

We’ve probably heard of metaphorically being “over a barrel”, but what about literally being in one? This is the curious sea-farin’ tale of Captain Sluman Gray of Lebanon, in Connecticut (and what happened to him after his demise and burial), even though the gulf between the story and the truth can be as wide as the ocean itself. Well, for a long time, the story regarding Capt. Gray went something like this: an experienced whaling captain, Gray—with his wife Sarah and their children in tow—put out aboard the James Maury…

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Malte Stierngranat: the man who did what he wanted

Robin

Locals in Sweden have a nickname for the eccentric nobleman who built himself a pyramid tomb in the middle of the south highlands: “Mannen som gjorde vad som föll honom in”. Literally: “The man who did what he wanted.” The curious character certainly carried around a lot of names. His name was Georg Malte Gustav August Liewen Stierngranat, and was born in 1871 on an estate called Nobynäs, outside of the small city of Aneby. Because he was the oldest son, he was expected to stick around the manor house…

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The curious London’s time-traveling tomb

Leo S

Swinging open the gate of Brompton Cemetery is a bit like swinging open a little bit of London history. Here rests famous suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst, and Beatrix Potter strolled its 39 acres, plucking names from tombstones to use in her work, including deceased Peter Rabbett and Mr. Nutkins. Moreover, here more than 35,000 monuments in all are present, rich and poor, known and unknown. In the middle of the grounds and shrouded by trees stands a fascinating mausoleum in Egyptian style made from granite, with a heavy bronze door secured…

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Jewett City Vampires: the graves of a Connecticut family thought to be plagued by a vampire ~

Leo S

When people think of early New England, one of the many things that come to mind are the infamous witch trials of the late 17th century, of which Connecticut was quite an active participant with lot of people tried as witches and some of them even executed. During that dark time in state’s history the belief in and fear of supernatural creatures was quite strong: not only were witches a source of concern, so was the Devil himself. This general sense of apprehension in regard to the supernatural was so…

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Nadežda Nada Tomić: the story of a brave young medical doctor who lost her life trying to save a drowning child at Lake Geneva

Ivan

We are at the secluded part of the New Cemetery in Belgrade, under a century old trees. Here there is one of the most striking and, according to some art historians, most valuable piece of artwork at the cemetery: a high-relief depicting Our Savior, embracing a sleeping young girl, firmly holding an infant who is grasping tightly onto her. The inscription on the white headstone beneath the relief reads: Into Death for Another – Nada 1896-1922. The high relief is located at the Tomić-Tomanić family crypt and it is devoted…

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Malaga’s English Cemetery and its last guardian

Danilo G.

The English Cemetery (also know as the St. George’s Cemetery) is the oldest Protestant cemetery in Spain. It was established 1831 for the British merchants who lived in the city of Málaga and, before that, they were buried on the sea shore at night, since they were mainly Protestants and could not be buried in the Catholic consecrated ground.The reason?In 1787, King Carlos III created a statute that forbade the interment of any non-Roman Catholic during daylight hours and in any of the existing cemeteries in Spain. During those years,…

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Maria Higgins, the woman who was buried twice

Leo S

Glasnevin Cemetery, in Irish Reilig Ghlas Naíon, is a large cemetery in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland which opened in 1832. It has its famous occupants, including Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins, author Christy Brown and Dubliners star Luke Kelly. But it is also the final resting place for many ordinary citizens who led interesting lives and deaths. This is the case of Maria Higgins, a completely ordinary person with a completely normal life. Except for the fact that she managed to die twice. According to her husband, Charles Higgins, Maria…

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The grave of Mary Nasson, the Witch of York ~

Leo S

Like all states, also Maine has it’s weird and paranormal events throughout history. When the Spaniards came into the Southwest had the very first Thanksgiving (recorded), some 35 years or more before the Pilgrims’ landed on Plymouth rock. This is a historical fact that all of Far West Texas and New Mexico residents hold in highest esteem. Be that as it may be, the English Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Actually, the Pilgrim’s never even referred to the rock and it was not mentioned until about 1715 and…

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Manila Cemetery: known as “Beverly Hills of the Dead” is full of luxurious final resting places

Pavel

Not even death put an end to the luxurious lifestyles of some of Manila’s wealthy Chinese residents. Here, in the capital of Philippines, the dead have better houses than the living ones: the Chinese Cemetery of Manila is a real little neighborhood, with many tombs reaching the size of real mansions, including all their modern amenities. The mausoleums lining either side of two-way streets within the cemetery are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities that many living people can only dream of: they have fully-functioning kitchens and bathrooms with luxury fittings, and…

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Beechworth Cemetery and Chinese burning towers

Nathan

The discovery of gold at Ballarat in 1851 sparked Victoria’s famous gold rush of the 1850s. This led to the probably most significant event in the evolution of the state of Victoria, Australia: the mass migration of people from across the globe to the region hoping to become rich. It’s believed that at the peak of the gold rush, 6,000 miners arrived in the region each week, including many Chinese nationals who converged on Beechworth seeking fortune around the late 1850s. As the population in Beechworth (then surveyed as Mayday…

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Boot Hill Cemetery: “They died with their boots on.”

Leo S

Boot Hill cemetery is located in downtown Tilden, Texas. It is one of the only two authentic cemeteries of its kind in the southwest and was named Boothill because so many of those who were interred there died violently, literally “with their boots on.” Tilden was founded in 1858, and was first known as Frio Rio. It was one of the first two settlements in McMullen County, and it had eight to ten crude dwellings that housed about thirty people. Soon afterward the townspeople built a road connecting their settlement…

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Cementerio del Andinista: a cemetery dedicated to the mountaineers who perished climbing Mount Aconcagua

Nathan

At 6,962 metres (22,840ft), Mt. Aconcagua is the tallest peak in the Americas and, nestled high in the Andes near the border of Argentina and Chile, it’s the highest mountain anywhere outside of Asia. To mountaineers, it’s not a very technical trek, as it doesn’t require any specialized equipment to reach the summit, even though the hike can be deceptively dangerous for those who are unprepared. Not by chance, Aconcagua is believed to have the highest death rate of any mountain in South America, around three a year, which has…

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The oldest comic in the world? In a tomb in Jordan!

Pavel

It was drawn 2,000 years ago and does not depict superheroes, cute little animals or thieves in a luxury car, but the workers of the ancient city of Capitolias, in the north of Jordan, one of the 10 Greek-Roman cities listed by Pliny the Elder as the Decapolis, a group of semi-autonomous Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, between present-day Israel, Jordan and Syria. The painting, which is the oldest example of modern “comic”, with the phrases pronounced by the protagonists spelled out next to their…

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The tomb of Jules Verne: “Vers l’immortalité et l’éternelle Jeunesse”

Adam

The world-famous writer Jules Verne died of diabetes at the age of 77 on March 24, 1905, in Amiens, France, where he was buried in the Cimetière de la Madeleine. Two years after his death, a sculpture entitled “Vers l ‘Immortalité et l’ Eternelle Jeunesse” (Towards immortality and eternal youth) was named after him, positioned on top of his tomb. Designed and built by sculptor Albert Roze using the writer’s actual death mask, the statue shows the figure of Jules Verne breaking the tomb lid and gloriously emerging from his…

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Monumental Cemetery of Lecco – Italy

Anya016

Inaugurated on August 6, 1882 and designed by the engineer Enrico Gattinoni, the Monumental Cemetery of Lecco represents a real open-air museum. It contains works in marble and bronze by well-known local and non-local artists, which date back also to the late nineteenth century, including Giulio Branca (1850 -1926) whose works vary between late-classicism models and other pictorial styles, Francesco Confalonieri (1850 – 1925 ) classicist and with the greatest number of works present, or Giannino Castiglioni (1884 – 1971) of which Lecco also houses the imposing monument to the…

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Reasons why you should visit the Camposanto of Pisa

Danilo G.

Despite the Camposanto, a monumental cemetery, is just right next to one of the most recognized buildings in the world, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy, it does not see nearly as many visitors. “Campo Santo” can be literally translated as “holy field”, because it is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Golgotha, brought back to Pisa from the Third Crusade by Ubaldo Lanfranchi, archbishop of Pisa in the 12th century. According to a popular belief, the bodies buried in that ground will rot…

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Centuries of history and miracles: the beautiful Laorca Cemetery

Anya016

The Laorca cemetery is located in the Laorca district north of Lecco, region of Lombardy, in Northern Italy, and has developed around the caves and the ancient church of St John the Baptist (also called Chiesa ai Morti, “Church to the dead”) in Laorca. In 2011, together with Monumental Cemetery of Lecco, it was included in the “European Cemeteries Route” that is the European itinerary of monumental cemeteries. It is in fact inserted in a unique natural context, and it is a jewel of art and nature. The environment is…

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The Hardy Tree: the churchyard ash tree surrounded by hundreds of gravestones placed there by author Thomas Hardy

Nathan

Inside an ancient churchyard in London an ash tree is encircled with hundreds of overlapping gravestones, placed there by classic novelist Thomas Hardy. The cemetery, alongside London’s St. Pancras Old Church, is considered by many to be one of England’s oldest places of Christian worship, and it is the site of a number of fascinating stories. For istance, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the future Mary Shelley planned their elopement there while visiting Mary’s mother’s grave. Restored in the first few years of the 21st century, the graveyard served…

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The stunning statue on the tomb of the legendary Maid Marian

Adam

Little Dunmow Church, St Mary, is one of the oldest buildings in Essex, England. The building was originally the chapel of the lady of an Augustinian convent of the 12th century, and inside there is an alabaster tomb depicting one of the most famous women in British history, Maid Marian. Legendary companion of Robin Hood, the literary character was actually inspired by the life and legends surrounding the daughter of a 13th-century Essex baron, Matilda Fitzwalter. Born in the late 12th century, Matilda was the daughter of Robert, Baron Fitzwalter,…

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Constantin Poroineanu and the legend of the crying lovers

Danijel90

At the end of the 19th century, Constantin Poroineanu went abroad to complete his studies. He was in Paris, when he met a beautiful girl at a student’s ball. He fell in love with her and, even though he was married and had a son back at home, they ended up having an affair. However his father did not approve this and forced him to leave the beautiful French girl and return home in Caracal, Romania, to his family. Here Constantin continued his life and affairs in agriculture and politics…

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The haunted fields of Andersonville~

Leo S

When it comes to haunted places in the Deep South of United States, two cities often come to mind: Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. If you’ve ever been to either of these two cities you’ll understand why. And if not, just considering their history, how could they not be, given the bloodshed of the Civil War as well as the horrible Slave Trade? Despite it is easy to understand why these two cities carry a reputation for harboring the souls of the dead, there is another haunted place in…

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John Wimble: a lifetime at sea…

Danijel90

At the age of 12 John boarded a ship for the first time. And that’s when the sea became his home. John Wimble was born in 1797 in Maidstone, Kent, England. His first voyage at sea was probably at age 12 or 13 and, by 1823, aged 26, he had gained sufficient skill and experience to meet the criteria laid down by the Honourable East India Company for captains of ships contracted to carry goods to and from India. At the time, he was in charge of an “extra” ship…

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Old San Juan cemetery: the white graveyard overlooking the ocean that is accessed through a tunnel.

Robin

According locals, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, even a cemetery is extraordinary. And, apparently, this is one of the most beautiful in the world. Nestled on a hill in front of the blue Atlantic waters, and framed by the city walls, this beautiful cemetery is located amid two of the island’s busiest attractions, the El Morro fort and Castillo San Cristóbal. It lies close to the infamous neighborhood of La Perla, and is reached by way of a tunnel leading to the main gate. The gravestones have been placed very…

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Barra Head: the highest lighthouse in UK that shines from an abandoned island

Ivan

We are in the island of Barra Head, the southernmost in the Outer Hebrides, an island unprotected from the ravages of ocean storms. In the fall of 1833, on October 15, the Barra Head Lighthouse lighted on for the first time, meant to help sailors near the island’s cliffs deal with the incredible waves. The lighthouse identifies the southern entrance to The Minch, a strait in north-west Scotland, separating the north-west Highlands and the northern Inner Hebrides from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides. The 18-metre stone tower stands…

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Memorial to the victims of the Baquet Theatre fire of 1888 at the Cemitério de Agramonte of Porto, Portugal

Adam

Sometimes, a visit to an old historic cemetery can provide an insight into the history of the city in which it is located. It is the case of Agramonte Cemetery, located in the city of Porto, that also houses one of Portugal’s most important collections of sculptures. Agramonte was created in a hurry in 1855, as an appropriate burial site was urgently needed for the victims of a sizeable cholera epidemic. Subsequently, in 1869, the cemetery was restructured and incorporated private cemeteries that were run by various Brotherhoods within the…

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Buried Alive: the creepy true legend of Julia Legare

Leo S

When the golden beams of the sun’s light shine through the Spanish moss draped trees at the Edisto Island Presbyterian Church, South Carolina, it’s easy to think that a slow-moving shadow is just that:– a shadow. But maybe, it is something else. In fact, the locals tell a strange ghost story down on the island and, probably, It is one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking tales you will ever hear. The Legare family owned a plantation here, in the time before the Civil War and their family mausoleum is…

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