BU Archaeology Colonial Cemeteries Visit
Professor Robert Murowchick and some undergrads visited two colonial cemeteries, the Granary Burial Ground and the Kings Chapel Burying Ground in downtown Boston. Their goal was to think about the archaeological uses of seriation – establishing a relative chronology based on changing popularity of certain motifs or styles of artifacts through time. This has been usefully applied in many sites and cultures since the first major application by W.M Flinders Petrie when he was trying to figure out the chronology of hundreds of predynastic tombs in Egypt based on changes in ceramics. The historical archaeologist James Deetz and his colleagues demonstrated its utility in the 1960s in a wonderful study of changing gravestone iconography in New England. They had fun finding examples of the Death’s Head, Cherub, and Urn and Willow motifs, and the various subtle symbolic iconographic features that mark Boston-area gravestones from the late 17th and 18th centuries. It was a gorgeous, cool, sunny autumn day, and after intense labors in the graveyards they had lunch at Quincy Market.
Click here to see the photos taken by Professor Murowchick and the students.
