As an addendum to my recent posts war memorials beside rivers, ashes, texts and traces of death in the contemporary landscape, and water and butterfly memorials, I wish to report on two further encounters with mortuary traces in association with still and moving water. Both concern bodies of water, and both are ambiguous based on the traces I observed on recent walks.
First, we have a Christmas wreath tied to a tree beside a lake. Was this a site of ash-scattering, and/or tied to remember a loved one lost at Christmas time. Less likely, maybe it is simply an attempt to ‘season-up’ a bleak grey landscape?
Second, we have flowers and a wreath, discarded into the River Dee. Surely a memorial linked to ash-scattering, or remembering someone whose ashes were once scattered here?
Both constitute traces of how watery places continue to draw memories to them.
Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 