WHERE TO PLACE THE TOMB? THIS FIRST CHAPTER FOCUSES ON THE choices made in the selection of a place for burial. Space is an important component of cemeteries, related both to the internal organization of a burial ground and to the surrounding landscape. Cemeteries and individual tombs were part of various, intersecting landscapes: the rolling hills and expansive steppe of the natural landscape, the houses and roads of the built landscape, the olive presses and irrigation canals of the productive landscape. This chapter also investigates the placement of burial grounds and individual tombs in relation to one another. How were cemeteries organized, and where were they placed vis-à-vis older burial grounds? What do these choices reveal about the relationship between communities and the landscape they inhabited? The emphasis in this chapter is thus placed on landscapes of the dead: cemeteries as landscapes and cemeteries in (built and natural) landscapes.

Spatial links are key in the discussion of landscape and cemetery organization, yet the available evidence imposes limitations. The absence of spatial data, sometimes even in the most basic form of a plan of the cemetery, prohibits detailed geographical information system (GIS) examinations and statistical analyses of, for example, spatial clustering or visibility analysis. We concentrate on the available evidence, which varies in quality for each of the cemeteries discussed. The first section of the chapter addresses the location of the cemeteries in relation to the built, natural, and past landscapes. The discussion centers on the study of the spatial connection between the cemetery and the town, as well as the zone around the settlement where agricultural installations, animal pens, quarries, roads, and features of the water supply were located. It then moves to questions concerning the visibility of tombs and the separation of settled and cemetery landscapes. The second section investigates the layout of the cemeteries, by focusing on spacing, orientation, clustering, spatial hierarchy, and intercutting of tombs. The conclusion highlights the aspects that characterize cemeteries across the province and can be considered part of cross-regional mortuary practices.