Analysis of inscriptions and pictorial elements of men and women graves in Kerman cemetery

Document Type : researcher

Authors
soodeh maghsoodi
Maryam Salehi
Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
10.22034/scm.2024.182882
Abstract
Cemeteries can narrate the history of the city and its builders by considering the interaction with social and natural environment. This field also reflects the approach of human beings from the past to the present to the categories of culture, religion and beliefs of a group or a nation. In other words, by examining what is happening in cemeteries, one can understand the beliefs and attitudes of a group of people. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the content of texts and images on the tombstones of men and women in public parts of Kerman cemetery. This research is of descriptive-analytical type and has studied the texts and pictorial elements of the graves in Kerman cemetery by using the technique of quantitative content analysis and by adopting the approach of social semiotics. The sampling unit was the tombstone and the registration units were word, sentence and image. Data collection was performed in the field (field visit of tombstones and photography). The results showed that the contents were divided into two groups of linguistic and non-linguistic semiotics. It was found that a certain pattern dominates the inscriptions so that the tombstones of men and women are similar in many ways and have religious and literary themes. But the most important differences between the tombstones of men and women were in attributed sex characteristics and the rate of use of pictorial symbols.

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Society Culture Media
Volume 12, Issue 49
Winter 2024
Pages 75-94

  • Receive Date 05 August 2023
  • Revise Date 14 October 2023
  • Accept Date 31 October 2023