(http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/deathshead.html)
After The Great Awakening took place in early America, citizen's philosophies began to change along with political ideals. Americans began to imitate Roman and Greek styles in their architecture and, surprisingly, on their gravestones.
The urn was an Imperial Roman device used to contain ashes. It symbolized the immortality of the soul. The willow was an ancient mourning symbol. The combination of these two symbols showed an increase in sentimentality towards death. The urn and willow symbol continued to be used on gravestones up until the 1930s (eyesofscyld).
During the late 1700s there was also a change in the entire shape of the gravestone. The earlier gravestones had rounded upper corners, while the later ones were square. This change was also because of the neoclassical era inspired by the ancient Romans.
The picture above is an example of the urn and willow symbol. Although this gravestone has rounded corners, it has a more intricate edge than the earlier stones.
Another change which occurs at the end of the 16th century is the statement carved on the gravestone. Earlier stones read "Here lies" or "Here lies the body of", and the later stones read "In memory of" or "Sacred to the memory of". This allows the stone to be placed without having to have the body buried beneath it. This would make sense if, say, someone died at sea, or if the body could not be salvaged.
Sources:
Deetz, Patricia Scott and Fennell, Christopher. Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow. Dec 14 2007. Retrieved Sept 29 2013. Web.
eyesofscyld. New England Gravestone Symbolism. YouTube. Mar 3 2013. Web. Retrieved Sept 8, 2013.
Iconography of the Gravestones. City of Boston. Web. Retrieved Sept 22, 2013.
I am truly enjoying reading your blog. I grew up in New England right along the coast in what used to be a major whaling town. Many of the old cemeteries in that town and in the surrounding towns were a whaling captains and their crew. What I also found interesting is that many headstones have spelling mistakes on them in one particular graveyard. A carrot was used to fix the spelling errors. What is strange is that it that after reading your blog, I want to go back an take a detailed look at those gravestones. I want to know what that simply a bad monument carver or was this during a time when a mass amount of people were dying. Something I will look into the next time I am up that way,
ReplyDeleteI find myself looking forward to what you post each week. I am intrigued by the Roman influence on the styles of gravestones. I myself notice that in today's society we don't use such aesthetically pleasing head stones. I always find myself drawn, this sounds creepy, but anyways to the head stones in grave yards that are more ornate than others. I know historically that heights of gravestones were regulated in some areas in relations to class and race. I wonder if in your research you will come across any racial differences in grave stones?
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