~ The Three Most Common Graveyard
Motifs and their Meanings ~
The
three most popular of all the gravestone motifs were the Death's-Head, the Soul
Effigy or the Winged Cherub and the Urn and willow though countless other exist.
The following is an alphabetical list:
The Death's-Head
The
Elizabethan winged death's-head with its blank eyes and tooth-filled grin was
used from 1620 until around 1700, as in the Captain Edward Russell stone
(figure 1 below) found in Salem, Massachusetts, either by itself or with
secondary symbols like the hourglass, pick, scythe or crossbones as in the
Sarah Christophers stone (Figure 2 below) found in
New London, Connecticut. These symbols of mortality emphasizing the brevity of
life and the awesome power of death symbolically depict the soul's voyage
through death. When used with a vine piercing the skull it's representative of
life in heaven.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The Soul Effigy
Around
1700 the grim death's-head began to soften and be transformed. By the 1750's
the death's-head was replaced by the winged cherub or soul effigy. The John Crowninshield stone (figure 3 below) found in Salem, Massachusetts
and the Elizabeth Bartlett stone (figure 4 below) found in Plymouth,
Massachusetts, both show this softening transition. This symbolizes Man's
immortal side, and is suggesting themes of a heavenly reward after death rather
than the fearsome grimness of death. Along with the change from the grim
death's-head to the soul effigy the epitaphs also
changed from "Here lies the body of..." to things stressing the joy
of resurrection.
Figure 3
Figure 4
The Urn and the Willow
By
the beginning of the nineteenth century more questioning intellectual sects
such as Unitarianism accompanied by a neoclassical revival in the arts yielded
to a new gravestone motif - the urn and the willow such as the Oliver Barber
stone (figure 5) found in South Canterbury, Connecticut and the Reverend Luther
Clark (figure 6) also found in South Canterbury, Connecticut. The urn contained
the remains of the deceased from which the soul arises to heaven and the willow
symbolizes the mourning for the earthly life and joy of the new celestial life.
Epitaphs again changed to read " In memory
of..." or "Sacred to the memory of..." avoiding any reference to
death or eternity. Unfortunately by the mid 1800's we find little else but this
design until the art of pictorial stone carving seemed to vanish altogether.
Figure 5
Figure 6
Background on Gravestones 
Gravestone
Motifs Gravestone Symbology
The Five Classes
of Gravestones Alphabetical
Listing of Gravestone Symbols
Light House Clock Stone Concord’s Sleepy
Hollow Cemetery
Salem’s Burying Point Cemetery
Gravestones A New England Art Form © 1992-2007 D. A. Jacobs
Photography © 1992-2007 D.A. Jacobs all rights reserved
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