SharedCemeteries.net launch

Press release

17 December 2020

SharedCemeteries.net
A portal about shared funerary heritage worldwide

The Dutch Dodenakkers.nl Foundation launches the bilingual website SharedCemeteries.net (https://sharedcemeteries.net) about funerary heritage in former Dutch colonies, posts and fortifications worldwide. With the portal SharedCemeteries.net, the foundation wants to map shared funerary heritage abroad, give researchers and stakeholders the opportunity to share knowledge and to present it to a wide audience.

SharedCemeteries.net is "work in progress" and a start was made with mapping the funerary heritage of Suriname in collaboration with the Suriname Built Heritage Foundation. In addition, Japan has been made available. Information on India and the Caribbean will follow in the spring of 2021. Funerary heritage in more than twenty other countries will be added later in 2021.

In addition to overviews and articles per country or region, the website offers various glossaries, a clickable world map and an image bank. The foundation also wants to provide supporting documentation about management and preservation.

SharedCemeteries.net cordially invites researchers, historians, stakeholders and interested parties to work together to map out this special kind of shared heritage.

The portal was developed with support from the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds. Dodenakkers.nl was founded in 2001 and is a knowledge centre for Dutch funerary heritage, both in the Netherlands and abroad. In recent years, the foundation has been involved in advising on (former) Dutch cemeteries in Suriname, Japan, Indonesia, India, Italy, Turkey and South Africa. Members range from heritage professionals specialized in funerary heritage to dedicated volunteers with broad expertise. The foundation already manages an extensive website with more than 800 articles on funerary heritage in the Netherlands.