Kunigiškiai Cemetery

Kunigiškiai Cemetery is located in the northeastern part of Palanga, on the eastern side of the Palanga–Liepoja highway, to the left of Kunigiškiai Street, between sand and gravel pits, on the site of the former village of Kunigiškiai. The cemetery covers an area of 2,170 square meters. Today, it is surrounded by forest and overgrown with trees, forming an irregular circle with a 30 x 40 meter mound surrounded by a ditch. In its northern part, there is a cairn with the inscription “XVIII a. Maro aukoms atminti Palangos m. senbūviai 2009” (In memory of the victims of the plague of the 18th century, the old residents of Palanga, 2009). The residents of Palanga refer to these burial grounds as “markapiai.” They have fenced them off with a woven fence. In 2012, archaeological research in the burial ground area revealed burials. On October 26, 2012, the Kunigiškiai burial ground was included in the Register of Cultural Values due to its valuable archaeological and memorial properties (unique object code 36652).The documents of the Register of Cultural Values note that during archaeological surveys of the area in 2010 and 2011, burials from the 17th–13th centuries were found in the burial ground (possibly in plague graves). It is likely that people were buried here from the end of the 14th century until the plague epidemic of the 18th century, when the cemetery was moved to another location to protect against the plague. Until the second half of the 19th century, the village of Kunigiškiai belonged to the lands of Palanga Church. In 1975, this settlement was incorporated into the city of Palanga.The Register of Cultural Values states that “the community of Palanga’s long-time residents determined the location of the plague cemetery (old cemetery) based on residents’ memories and isolated unrecorded facts that bones were found while digging sand in a quarry. […] After locating the described place on maps from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, no cemetery marks were found […]. In 1862, on the map of Juozapas Tiškevičius’ estate, south of the described object, there is an inscription Pakapie (Papakiai – a place near the cemetery?), but there is no cemetery mark. As no written or cartographic sources about the described area were found, archaeological exploratory research was carried out. In 2010, it was established that there is an old cemetery in the area. In 2011, the boundaries of the old cemetery were clarified. In 2010 and 2011, archaeological exploratory research carried out in an area of 700 m2 revealed that the area of the old cemetery visually corresponds to a 30 x 40 m hill covered with forest and bordered by a ditch. It may have been dug as a protective barrier to prevent the spread of plague. The ditch is the only visual landmark indicating that this could have been a plague cemetery. No other features identifying the site were found: the graves found on the hill and almost under the ditch were arranged in rows with a predominantly Christian orientation towards the west. The archaeological research material indicates that the burial ground protection area is a quadrangular area based on the coordinates provided in the material.https://zemaitiuzeme.lt/aktualijos/kunigiskiu-senkapis/