Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfirin
The answer to why there are so few graves in ME and they all seem to belong to the noble and important is very, very simple, they were the only ones ALLOWED such a privalege. The Concept of a grave as we now now it, that of a spot that a person is interred FOREVER, is a very, very new concept, even in the western world (started around the 18th-19th century, I belive). Prior to that waht happened to most people was a more temporary affair. the Body was buried with a marker of usuallly wood (NOT stone). after a period of time (3-5 years in some areas up to 20 in others) the grave was dug up, and any bones remaining were deposited in mass ossuary (sometimes) or discarded (more often) along with the marker (assuming it had not already rotted away) and the space was re-used for another burial (remember the gravedigger's scene in Hamlet. The ronly people who were allowed such luxuries as a permanent resting place tened to be the upper classes most of whom interred thier dead in family crypts or catacombs which were sometimes but not alaways located under the actual houses the familes lived in. Under the floors of churches was another popular place for the rich to be buried (Westminster Abbey is a good example of this) There are even some very famous chuches which decorated thier interiors with mosaics made from the bones of those buried within thier walls.) In having so few permanet graves Tolkein is just adhering to the historical record.
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I don't know where you are from in the western world, but around here we do not keep our graves forever. . .not unless we have relatives willing to pay for it or we are of the royal family. I think the general rule is that you keep you grave site for 25 years after your death, then it is up to relatives to decide if they want to keep it.
Anyways whether the graves only stood for a few years or permanently, it does not change the problem: Why don't we here about them?