39 Items Tagged

Funeral Art

Niles, Michigan

The Mourning Museum at Borrowed Time Oddities

A cabinet of funerary art and death culture hidden inside an oddities shop.

Florence, Italy

Cloister of the Dead

A haunting medieval cloister that once served as the friars’ burial ground.

Lisbon, Portugal

Cemitério dos Prazeres (Prazeres Cemetery)

This historic cemetery is home to the largest private mausoleum in Europe.

La Torre de Esteban Hambrán, Spain

Catafalque of La Torre de Esteban Hambrán

You can only see this Baroque masterpiece during the month of November.

The small interior of a chapel with a small mosaic floor arched roof and two coffins.

Carrick-On-Shannon, Ireland

Costello Memorial Chapel

The smallest chapel in Europe is a moving testament to the love between a husband and wife.

Metal guitarist and paper effigy artisan Koh Eng Keat sits on his motorcycle in front of a seven-foot-tall paper mansion. Keat runs 358 Custom Effigies Workshop with his father Koh Ah Bah where building elaborate papier-mâché effigies like this are just part of a normal workday.

Meet the Punk Rocker Building Life-Sized Paper Effigies for Malaysia’s Ghosts

The doom metal guitarist builds papier-mâché BMWs, iPhones, and mansions—then it all goes up in smoke.

Marco Ferrarese February 24, 2023

Pure 100-percent cacao is bitter and only slightly sweet.

The Surprisingly Sacred Roots of Chocolate

Among the Maya, cacao has served as a powerful symbol from womb to tomb.

Sam O'Brien February 14, 2023

Nida Ethnographic Cemetery

Nida, Lithuania

Nida Ethnographic Cemetery

An extensive collection of some of the oldest grave markers in Lithuania.

The Angel of the Resurrection by Giulio Monteverde.

Monteverde Angel

The "Mona Lisa" of funerary art.

Burial Tumulus

Museo De Arte Virreinal (Museum of Viceroyalty Art)

The jewel of the museum is a rare tumulus, a funeral decoration from the 18th century.

Boards represent doors to and from the grave.

Romerillo, Mexico

Maya Crosses of Romerillo Cemetery

This isolated Maya cemetery in Chiapas is distinguished by its towering, colorful wooden crosses.

Mexico City, Mexico

Panteón Francés de La Piedad

This French cemetery houses some of the most exquisite examples of funerary art in Mexico City.

The stele.

Cáceres, Spain

The 'Astronaut' of Casar

A strange anthropomorphic stele with a mysterious inscription that has never been deciphered.

The eerie gaze of the Lady of Elche.

The Lady of Elche

An iconic and controversial ancient Iberian funerary urn with a hauntingly penetrating gaze.

The baby angel.

Durango, Mexico

Benigno Montoya Funerary Art

A historic cemetery doubles as a museum containing hundreds of unique tombs sculpted by a single artist.

Researchers used three different imaging technologies to analyze a second-century portrait.

The Alchemy and Artistry of Ancient Egypt's Funerary Portraits

High-tech imaging tools are taking researchers under the paint, layer by layer.

Jessica Leigh Hester December 21, 2017

Chigi Chapel.

Parish Church of Santa Maria del Popolo

A treasure trove of Renaissance-era funerary art in a Roman church built on top of Nero's grave.

Bellefontaine Cemetery.

St. Louis, Missouri

Bellefontaine Cemetery

The first rural cemetery west of the Mississippi is home to the elaborate tombs of St. Louis' local beer barons.