March 21, 2011

Oldest graves of the Netherlands discovered in Rotterdam

Filed under: History by Branko Collin @ 8:31 am

BOOR wrote earlier this month:

During a dig in 2008 in the Rotterdam neighbourhood Beverwaard three pits with cremated human remains have been found. Carbon dating has revealed the remains to be 9,000 years old. That makes these the oldest graves in the Netherlands.

BOOR archaeologists studied the top of a river dune where a tram garage was to be built. The graves, dating from the middle stone age (8000 – 3500 BC), also contained burial gifts such as flint tools, a hammer and a wetting stone.

BOOR is the municipal bureau for archaeology of Rotterdam.

(Photo: BOOR. Link: Telegraaf)

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February 5, 2011

Tombstone becomes property of survivors

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:35 pm

Tombstones will remain the property of those who bought them in the first place, Minister of the Interior Piet Hein Donner announced last Monday. Until now, cemeteries would assume ownership once the stone was placed on the grave.

Cemeteries, Uitvaart.nl reports, now have to contact the survivors once the grave rights run out. Survivors can then opt to collect the tombstone.

Grave rights in the Netherlands typically last 10 or 20 years. The new regulation enters in force on 1 March, having already been in force since 1 January 2010 for new graves.

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November 20, 2008

Buried alive

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:18 am

A gravedigger in Laren, Noord Holland, was buried alive last Tuesday when an excavated pile of sand fell back into the hole he was standing in. Two of his colleagues managed to escape the impromptu burial, Blik op Nieuws reports, but it took firemen half an hour to extract the third, a 50-year-old man from nearby Hilversum. Afterwards the man was transported to a hospital by an ambulance with what appeared to be light injuries.

Photo: Salem graves by by Alanna Ralph, some rights reserved.

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