"An aerial view of the La Legua mass grave. From above, its possible to see almost the entire grave, which contains fifty-nine victims of a firing squad."
Photo by Alvaro Minguito Palomares, "Chasing the Ghosts of Franco."
Photo by Alvaro Minguito Palomares, "Chasing the Ghosts of Franco."
Datasets
Mass Grave Data
"Map of Graves" by the Spanish Ministry of Justice
One of the most recognized visualizations of mass grave recovery in Spain is a digital map published on the Ministry of Justice’s website and based on information provided by regional authorities and historical memory associations. As one of the measures of the Historical Memory Law, the Ministry developed a map that reveals areas with the remains of victims and the recuperation status of the grave sites. The government’s map identifies if a mass grave has already been fully or partially exhumed (red), has yet to be opened (green), is missing (white) or has had its contents moved to the Valley of the Fallen, a vast underground mausoleum built on Franco's orders near Madrid (yellow). Along with indicating the status of exhumation, a user can click on any point on the map to pull up further metadata about the grave site. In addition to the mapping interface, a search function allows users to search for keywords within the metadata for the grave sites. As of 2021, the Map of Graves has been removed and replaced with a new map backed with new data. These may be changes that have arisen from the new law of Democratic Memory (22/2020). Two years after its ratification, we see new, collaborative data being used to drive the map of graves.
Along with providing the map, and as part of the Historical Memory Law, the Ministry also publishes the data they use as the base of their visualization through their website. The National Catalogue of Open Data is housed online and acts as the access point to data sets that the government makes available for reuse. The dataset titled: “Graves or burial sites in the Spanish territory” is purportedly updated twice yearly as the disinterments continue. You can download the most recent dataset at this link.
Along with providing the map, and as part of the Historical Memory Law, the Ministry also publishes the data they use as the base of their visualization through their website. The National Catalogue of Open Data is housed online and acts as the access point to data sets that the government makes available for reuse. The dataset titled: “Graves or burial sites in the Spanish territory” is purportedly updated twice yearly as the disinterments continue. You can download the most recent dataset at this link.
Grave Map Finder published in 2022.
The Ministry no longer publishes the mass grave dataset and has not updated it since 2015. While the page for the data is active on the Spanish government’s open data portal. (Iniciativa de datos abiertos del Gobierno de España), the links to the data are broken. These may be changes that have arisen from the new law of Democratic Memory (22/2020). Two years after its ratification, we see new, collaborative data being used to drive the map of graves. Since 2021, the Ministry of the Presidency has been promoting the updating of the map in collaboration with several Autonomous Communities.
Digital Cultural Materials
Following Dublin Core metadata standards, I formatted a dataset of multimedia texts relating to recuperation efforts. The media included on the map is inherently inscribed by place, but it was also imperative to include the data (or metadata) about the data (or digital text). The metadata schema emerged from the texts included on the map, since these digital materials are to be studied, considered and analyzed.