A graveyard is a place where dead people are buried. Other words for it include cemetery and burial ground.
While people use the terms cemetery and graveyard interchangeably, this wasn’t always the case. Graveyards originally referred to areas of church grounds where people were buried. Later, independent burial sites called cemeteries grew in popularity.
What is a Graveyard?
A graveyard is a place where dead people are buried. It can be a public or private burial ground. Graveyards often contain many gravestones. The word cemetery has a different meaning than graveyard. Cemetery is a term that implies a more organized and planned approach to burial grounds. It suggests that there are rules about who can be buried in a cemetery and what kind of memorials can be done for the deceased.
In the Middle Ages, wealthy and influential Christians were usually buried inside their churches in crypts. Less privileged congregants were buried outside in the churchyard. This section of the church became known as the graveyard, a compound word formed from the Proto-Germanic verb “graban” and the noun gardan (“enclosed area of land”).
Today’s cemetery is typically much bigger than that of the Middle Ages, and it can accommodate all types of religious faiths. Generally, being buried in the ground is cheaper than being entombed in a mausoleum.
Types of Burial Grounds
There are a number of types of burial grounds. These include the traditional cemetery, memorial parks and natural burial grounds. A burial ground can also be called a graveyard, although it is not the same as a cemetery. The main difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is that a cemetery can be much larger than a graveyard and it is not uncommon to see graves of different religions in the same place.
A cemetery is often a lot more organized than a graveyard and it tends to have more amenities. However, the basic function of both is to provide a location for people to pay their respects to their departed loved ones. This can be done whether the person is buried in a casket or cremated and placed in an urn. A graveyard may also contain monuments or headstones that commemorate the dead. These are sometimes called tombs. Typically, there will be a chapel in a cemetery for ceremonies to take place.
Locations of Graveyards
Historically, churchyards and graveyards were where people were first buried. But as people began burying themselves in large numbers, churches and churchyards ran out of space for new burials. So non-church-associated locations for burials were opened, usually away from busy city centers and near the countryside. These landscaped grave sites, often called “cemeteries” (or the less formal term “burial grounds”) were typically more organized than graveyards and usually had consecrated and non-consecrated spaces.
The two terms, cemetery and graveyard, are used interchangeably by most people. However, there are a few technical differences. The etymology of the two words is interesting as well. During Halloween season, some neighbors might decorate their front yards with tombstones or other props to celebrate the holiday. Those same decorations can also be used in a graveyard, which is not the same as a cemetery. In the end, a graveyard is any plot of ground where dead bodies are buried. The word is derived from the Dutch begraafplak, and the West Frisian begraafplaats.
Burials in Graveyards
The burial process can involve a wide variety of practices, from simple shrouding and inhumation to elaborate rituals and the use of coffins and burial vaults. Sometimes objects are buried with the body, such as personal items or ceremonial garb. Burial sites can be very crowded or quite sparse, depending on culture and the availability of space.
In the past, people were generally buried in churchyards. As the population grew, the capacity of these graveyards was exceeded, and completely new places for burial were needed. The word cemetery was introduced to describe these secular burial grounds, which are separate from churchyards.
Some cemeteries are developing new methods for managing their landscapes, including increasing the size of wild spaces and allowing for more natural vegetation to grow. They are also seeking to create and maintain habitats in these areas, so that ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and water filtration are constantly available. These examples have been automatically selected and may contain sensitive content.