A great deal of material has been written about cemeteries based on the assumption that they constitute a specific type of burial place, but few writers have given close attention to the task of describing the features that may be particular to cemeteries.

Ancient Egypt offers a paradigm contrast between ideals of respectful care for the dead, on the one hand, and realities of medium- and long-term neglect, destruction and reuse on the other. Ideals are expressed in normative mortuary monuments and in texts; the archaeological record, together with relatively few skeptical texts, testifies to realities.

The 23 flat markers wind like a gentle path through the tree-shaded park at 38th and Federal streets in Camden. Not 10 feet away are empty bottles of Seagram's gin and crumpled 12-packs of Old Milwaukee beer, fast-food wrappers, plastic bags and cardboard boxes. A child's shoe hangs by its laces from a battered park bench.

PORTSMOUTH In a cemetery complex tucked off of Deep Creek Boulevard and Pulaski Street, Nadia Orton tiptoes among the dead. Stepping on the sunken, wet ground, Orton keeps an eye out for feral dogs that have roamed the field for the last few months. "I think they were marking their territory," she said.