Table of Contents

Introduction: The materiality and spatiality of death, burial and commemoration

Christoph Klaus Streb and Thomas Kolnberger

1. Post-medieval burial customs in Germany – an archaeological perspective on materiality and spatiality

Hauke Kenzler

2. Charnel practices in medieval England: new perspectives

Elizabeth Craig-Atkins, Jennifer Crangle, P. S. Barnwell, Dawn M. Hadley, Allan T. Adams, Ian Atkins, Jessica-Rose McGinn, and Alice James

3. Material specificity and cultural agency: the mummies of the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Sicily

Natalie Polzer

4. Embalming and the materiality of death (France, nineteenth century)

Anne Carol

5. Ephemeral materiality: a place for lifeless infants in cemeteries

Philippe Charrier and Gaëlle Clavandier

6. The unnaturalness of natural burials: dispossessing the dispossessed

Anna-Katharina Balonier, Elizabeth Parsons and Anthony Patterson

7. Materiality and the body: explorations at the end of life

Thorsten Benkel and Matthias Meitzler

About the Author

Christoph Klaus Streb, PhD, is Director of the Institute of Historical Archaeology of the Palatinate in Germany and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) at the University of Luxembourg. His current main research project deals with the materiality and spatiality of burial and commemoration during the19th and 20th century in the border region between Luxembourg and Germany. Moreover, he is interested in the materiality and heritage of 20th century conflicts in the German Palatinate. For his research he applies historical-archaeological methodology, focusing on the development of modern identity and ideology.

Thomas Kolnberger, PhD, is a historian and research associate at the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) at the University of Luxembourg, Institute for History. He was the coordinator of a research project sponsored by the National Research Fund of Luxembourg (FNR): Material Culture and Spaces of Remembrance. A Study of Cemeteries in Luxembourg in the Context of the Greater Region (2015–2018).