graves

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St Mary’s Cemetery revisited

I've been exploring the old cemeteries around Port Elizabeth lately and revisited the St Mary's Cemetery for a proper look around. I think my interest in grave yards come from that part of me who wants to be a Indiana Jones type of archaeologist exploring jungles and discovering artifacts in long lost cities My friends were slightly confused when my Facebook status read "... is going for a haunt in St Mary's Cemetery" the other day. Always good to be…

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16/08/2010
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The fallen angel

I went to the South End Cemetery the other day to look up a couple of graves. In the old part of the grave yard I found this angel statue that has fallen over which tickled me and my camera's fancy.

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10/08/2010
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1800’s graveyard in Prince Albert

I was walking exploring around the back streets of the Karoo town of Prince Albert and to my delight stumbled on discovered this old cemetery. It belongs to the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) and the graves date between 1844 and 1884. Non of the graves really had grave stones, but they were all covered in stone mounds. It was interesting though that there was a couple of graves with small structures built over them towards the back of the…

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23/07/2010
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Sarah Bartmann’s grave

Situated on top of a hill overlooking the Gamtoos Valley just outside Hankey is the grave of Sarah Bartmann (Saartjie Baartman). She was born somewhere in the Gamtoos Valley in 1789 and moved to the Cape as a teenager to find work. From here she was lured to London under false in 1810 and was exhibited around England as the "Hottentot Venus". She was sold to a Frenchman who also exhibited her around France before here death. Sarah died in…

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21/07/2010
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Overgrown grave yard

On visiting the Somerset East Museum recently, I discovered this old overgrown grave yard behind it on the slopes of the Boschberg Mountain. I have a thing for old cemeteries and had a look around. Unfortunately the guy who was going to show us through the museum arrived and cut short my exploration, but next time I'm in town I will definitively head back there for another look.

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22/06/2010
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Historic Muslim Cemetery

Driving down Brickmakers Kloof (and over the new bridge), the historic St Mary's Cemetery is situated on the right hand side across the road from the old bus sheds. Very few people notice that between the road and the St Mary's Cemetery there is a number of graves. They seem to be Muslim graves, so I popped into the South End Museum to see if they had more information. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot of info available…

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07/06/2010
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Ouma Dora Jacobs

An interesting site I found next to the Somerset East Museum was the grave of Ouma (Grandma) Dora Dotyi Jacobs. Ouma Dora was born in May 1880 and was 122 years old when she died in January 2003. At the time she was the oldest living person in the world.She was laid to rest in a special place under the trees next to the museum. To get to her grave one has to walk down a path between the trees…

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09/05/2010
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Old grave yard

I was driving around the Klein Karoo town of Oudtshoorn looking for something interesting to photograph when I came across this old cemetery. It was surrounded by businesses and a couple of houses with a stone wall and old steel gate in the front. Cemeteries, especially old historic ones, fascinate me, so this was a huge find.The graves were made mostly of sandstone and the majority were so weathered and eroded that you couldn't see what was on them. I…

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05/03/2010
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Family grave yard

By now you are probably getting a bit bored with all the Oudtshoorn and Klein Karoo posts, so I will move on to the second part of our holiday which was a week spent at Cannon Rocks on the coast. I have some more stuff from this area, but I'll keep it for a little bit later. But before we get back to the coast, today's post is a bit more on the personal side. On our drive back from…

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25/01/2010
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Happy Halloween

Halloween isn't the biggest thing around here in South Africa. There are a couple of shops that sell some Halloween party decorations and gimmicks, but other than the odd Halloween party here and there, it kinda passes us by without much of a hoohaa. But I do want to wish my American and Canadian blogging friends a Happy Halloween though. At a loss of anything scarier to post, I'm featuring a picture taken in the historic St Mary's Cemetery.

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31/10/2009