Tombs and Mausoleums

A tomb or mausoleum is defined as a repository for either the cremated ashes of a deceased person, an actual corpse, or coffin. It is the place of interment for multiple bodies built above ground level or separated from earthen material if constructed below ground level. The notions of separation from contact with the actual earth and a physical vault that can be seen, touched, or entered are essential psychological components of these placements of deceased loved ones.

While research into death and dying has developed a broad research base, the focus on tombs and mausoleums is a relatively new area of investigation. Typically the research domain of sociologists, in recent times the concept of death and its relationship to entombment and spaces of death have received an interdisciplinary focus. Investigators from disciplines such as ethnography, social psychology, city planning, and professionals from within the death industry itself have come to see the importance of these physical spaces in regard to the psychology of spatiality and memorialization of the death and dying process as a whole.

In societies that use crypts, burial chambers, or tombs as either one aspect of the postdeath visitation experience or as a final repository after the funeral rites that is never revisited, these burial spaces have several symbolic functions relating to the notion of “permanency.” As death and subsequent decomposition of the body represent two of the most primal fears of humanity, the tomb plays an important role in that its functionality and physical presence play a deeper psychological role through an inter-related, three-way process reminding and reassuring those connected to the deceased, and the society at large, of several key facets related to this deep-rooted fear. This process is discussed in the following sections.

The Social-Cultural Functions of Tombs and Mausoleums

Whether housing single or multiple bodies, the tomb is a singular place that represents what has been called the three spaces of death. These nested or interrelated spaces are an important facet for both the deceased and the living in the crypt. There are three social-cultural functions that emerge from these spaces of death.

Reestablish the Routines of Life

Whether it is unexpected or at the end of a given time frame, death interrupts the normal ebb and flow of life. This rupture of the everyday process of living commences a process of grieving for the departed that unfolds in a series of stages, each of which are connected by an initial sense of disequilibrium and a profound sense of loss that is manifested both psychologically and physically. For many cultures, entombment in all of its various forms is seen as an integral component of stabilizing the feeling that not only is the deceased a missing physical element of everyday life, but that there is a deep, and often seemingly intangible, psychological sense of having a portion of self taken away.

In the limited research done in this area, respondents report that at the point of death of a loved one, and for some time afterward “it feels like a [Page 960]part of them has been ripped away,” or that “there is a part missing.” The physical presence of a tomb acts as an agent of healing this sense of a physical and emotional rift and allows the immediate family and social collective to come to grips with the profound sense of finality associated with their understanding and acceptance of the concept we often term “passing away.”

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