CARTON 1David Henriques de Castro, whom I introduced in earlier posts, described more than 6000 gravestones that he dug up in Beth Haim, cemetery of the Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam, situated in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. These 6000 graves can be found in the oldest field (“Oudste Afdeeling”), the field “Het Bosch” and the field “Rodeamentoshuis”. Most of the graves that Henriques de Castro dug up, were covered again with earth. Others, which he considered important because of the funeral art displayed or because the buried persons were of historical interest, were raised by putting simple brick and mortar walls beneath them.He also mapped the three mentioned fields. The oldest field is represented in 31 maps, each with a scale of 0,026 : 1 meter. Since each map measures 41 by 65.8 centimeter, each map covers an area of 106.5 by 171 meter. There is also an overview map that shows the relative position of each map to each other. If viewed from a north-south perspective, all the maps are upside down, with a slight tilt of some 30 degrees anti-clockwise. The 31 maps of the oldest field show the position of the graves, and have the names of the buried written in. The important ones (that is, important to Henriques de Castro) are coloured red. In this first installment of a series I share with you some general pictures, so you can see what I am talking about, plus map number 1 of the oldest field, which was bought by the community in 1614.