Mapping graves on the Mount of Olives
Elad is mapping graves on Har HaZeithim (Mount of Olives), the oldest active cemetery in the World. The goal is to photograph every grave, map it digitally, record every name, and make the information available online. That is supposed to allow visitors to find their way in the cemetery, long a bewildering jumble of crumbling gravestones and rubble surrounded by Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Beset for many years by neglect, it is among the oldest cemeteries in continuous use in the world.Read the whole thing. It understates the contempt with which the Jordanians treated Jewish graves on the Mount during the period in which they occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem.
Around 40,000 graves have been mapped so far by the team, which began work in 2008. They expect to finish recording all of the intact gravestones -- an estimated 100,000 in total -- by the end of next year. The rest are either so old they are unrecognizable or lie underneath later layers of burial.
Mappers look at aerial photographs, consult handwritten burial records dating back to the mid-1800s, walk along the rows of graves and dig through piles of dislocated tombstones, noting names and dates.
"This place has been used for burial since there have been signs of life in Jerusalem," said Moti Shamis, a member of the mapping team. "The cemetery is a mirror of the city -- in wartime, we see more graves. When new groups of Jews reach the city, the names on the graves change."
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Jews began burying their dead on the hill that later became known as the Mount of Olives about three millennia ago. It was a convenient site a short walk from the city walls. Over the centuries, burial here became linked to a prophecy in the Book of Zecharia according to which the Messiah would approach Jerusalem from the mount, splitting it in two. Those interred on the hill, this belief posited, would be the first to be resurrected.
The mount became, and remains, a sought-after place to be buried for Jews in Israel and abroad.
"As a place of burial it differs from almost every other on earth, in being, as no other is, a witness to a faith that is firm, decided and uncompromising until death," wrote Norman Macleod, a missionary, after a visit in 1864. "It is not therefore the vast multitude who sleep here, but the faith which they held in regard to their Messiah, that makes this spectacle so impressive."
Coincidence? Last week, one of my children was telling me that his rebbe (teacher) said that his grandfather's grave had been lost between 1948 and 1967.
Labels: Mount of Olives
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:14 AM
2 Comments:
We were asking while we were there exploring. The greatx5 grandfather's 1883 grave was possibly plowed under for a Jordanian road. It will be really interesting to see if the name shows up. If they make a GIS out of it, they could maybe make layers by decades. Some areas are all mixed in... they put in graves and then came back later as it got more crowded, they used the space between. Also, it would be interesting to scan and link into the GIS the old notes on everything... I figured some enterprising grad students would do it. But a grad student could take a 15x15 area and do timelines for everything in that tiny area, and it would probably cover the whole history of the world! Very fascinating and good work to the people doing it! Did you ever read The Source (Michener)? That's what this makes me think of... need to read it again!
Sunlight,
Yes, I read The Source many years ago. I think we still have it in the house.
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