Design of American Colonial era tombs

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Request for Question Clarification by digsalot-ga on 23 Jun 2003 09:01 PDT

The term "Colonial America" covers a vast territory from colonial
Spanish Florida and the southwest to English colonial Virginia, New
England and many places in between.  There are differences between
funeral architecture between the northern English colonies and
southern.  Funeral practice itself was reflected in tomb architecture.
 Northern colonies may be largely Puritan while the Virginia Colony
was mostly Anglican, etc, etc, etc.

If you could narrow down just what area you are looking for, it would
be a great help to researchers.

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Request for Question Clarification by digsalot-ga on 23 Jun 2003 09:02 PDT

Sorry for the linguistic clumsiness in the clarification request. 
There are just too many "betweens."

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Clarification of Question by agsjr-ga on 24 Jun 2003 07:32 PDT

My interest is limited to tombs in early Boston burying grounds,
especially the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.

I want to know about functional design, not purely decorative design,
e.g., dimensions of interior, shelving or other repositary
arrangements, capacity, expansibiity, ventilation, were bodies simply
laid out or were there caskets, how were tombs entered and re-entered,
practical waiting times between successive entrys and deposits of
remains, was there a standard system for identifying remains, were
remains usually left intact or were they merged and concentrated over
time, to make room for new bodies.

My understanding is that most if not all tombs were designed for
below-ground deposit of multiple remains, that the underground
chambers were much larger than the visible monuments above, and that
the chambers were often designed to faciltiate expansions.

I hope to be guided to web sites, books, manuscripts, design drawings,
contemporary accounts of construction, expansions and interments, all
shedding light on the above questions.

Thank you,

Graham Sterling