taphologist

plural taphologists

1. rareOne who studies graves and burial.

   Walton G. Roberts, Taphologist.

   1902 October 16, “Here in Lincoln”, in The Lincoln Daily Star, number 13, Lincoln, Neb.

   2 more examples

   Every day I pass a wall, some five hundred square feet of which a gentleman has taken to declare that he is ‘out’ to break the Undertakers’ Trust. Half the advertisement is a coloured photograph of himself. The rest is, “See what I give you for 75 dols.!” and a list of what he does give. He gives everything that the most morbid taphologist could suggest, beginning with “splendidly carved full-size oak casket, with black ivory handles. Four draped Flambeaux …” and going on to funereal ingenuities that would have overwhelmed Mausolus, and make death impossible for a refined man.

   1913–1915, Rupert Brooke, “New York (continued)”, in Letters from America, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, […], published 1916, page 27

   At the same time, taphologists need the preservation and recovery of their sacred places, something that, often, only archaeologists can properly provide.

   2006, Ryan M. Seidemann, “Stones and Bones: Can Taphologists and Archaeologists Happily Coexist?”, in AGS Quarterly: Bulletin of the Association for Gravestone Studies, volume 30, number 2, →ISSN, page 8, column 2