A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historica 3. (Szeged, 2000)
Ifj. LELE József: Tápé temetői
JÓZSEF LELE JR. THE CEMETERIES OF TÁPÉ Our little country has barely a region where we would not find a cemetery from the near or distant past. This assumption is true for various settlements and their vicinity. This is testified on an increasing number of occasions by archaeological excavations. Written sources first mention the name of Tápé in 1138. Before their final settlement, the people around here, carried on a mobile lifestyle: they were born, they fished, they lead their animals to the pastures, and they also died here. Ottó Trogmayer excavated a Bronze Age cemetery in this location, but there were also other archaeologists who found evidence of ancient life ways in this region. The first cemetery chapel was raised in the 12 th century. The later Gothic shrine, built over the foundation of the earlier structure, is still visible today as a part of the present day church of Tápé (the 'Keresztelőkút') [Baptism well]. That there was a cemetery around the building is proved by the occasional burials that came to the surface during the digging of the ditch in the church yard. The majority of the bones were unearthed when the church was expanded to its present form (1938—1940). They were reburied under the centre of the present day central nave. The next cemetery was located in the area enclosed by the Árvácska, Költő, Madarász and Törökverő Streets. It operated from an unknown time until the beginning of the 18 th century. The people who lived in Tápé around 1900 saw many wooden crosses in this area. When many earthen houses were brought down and new brick houses were built over their place during the years which followed the flood danger of the Tisza river in 1970, many skeletons and ceramic vessels turned up during the construction of the foundation of the new houses. This part of the settlement is known as the Régitemető [Ancient Cemetery] by the oldest inhabitants that are still alive today. When the new houses were planned to be built over the area of the Régitemető, the new cemetery was measured out north-east from this location, in the outer section of the present day Rév street. Today, it is called the Öregtemető [Old Cemetery]. A cemetery chapel was built in the new cemetery just as in the Régitemető. The earlier one was consecrated for the veneration of Saint John of Nepomuk and Saint John of Xaver, however, the new one ,which stands today, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. There is a well and a mortuary in the present cemetery (on Rév Street which was closed in 1965). A few wrought iron graveyards testify to the more prominent farmers who lived here, but the simple earthen burials were a lot more common. There are many wooden crosses, however, concrete crosses came to dominate later on, although there were no semi-crypts or complete crypts made. At the center of the cemetery is the communal or great cross where the inhabitants of Tápé, whose male relatives died in other countries during the world wars, light their candles of remembrance on All Soul's Day. The cemetery of Rév Street, known as the Öregtemető, was closed in 1965. A new was opened in Ásványhát field. On the three Hungarian acres of land, a well was dug and a mortuary was constructed. Although this is not a religious, but a communal cemetery, a bell tower was constructed in front of the mortuary. Religious people in Tápé had the new communal cross raised right here, and the structure for the urns on the northern side of the mortuary. Almost all of the burials are covered by a concrete structure in this cemetery, but there is an increasing number of semi-subterranean crypts. Some families have decided to have these constructed before their deaths.
