216 Gravestones Can Be Strange

It’s the “dark” of the year and Samhain (that traditional Gaelic festival to mark the end of the growing season and during which ancestors were honored) is over.  It, and similar pagan festivals were what the Church appropriated as All Hallows Day in the Ninth Century.  Soon to come, of course is the Winter Solstice, which was also the time of various pagan festivals which predate Christianity.  Christians also attempted to appropriate it by Constantine moving the Nativity to late December about 336 C.E.  The Bible (St. Luke) says: “2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 2:2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 2:3 And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city”  I could be wrong, of course, but it seems highly unlikely to me (and may have been established by records from the time) that the Roman government would have been so stupid as to require that virtually everyone had to travel to their family’s hometown during the worst travel season of the year.  But the Church found it desirable to preempt the earlier pagan festivals, so the Nativity was moved to this time to establish this period as a Christian holiday season and dispose of the pagan influences.  
 
It didn’t work, of course, as many of the common symbols of Christmas (the Yule log, the “Xmas” tree, the Xmas star, feasting, kissing under the mistletoe, etc.) all are actually pagan in their origin, but that’s beside the point.  Given the time of year, with its emphasis on the “season of the Dead” and all, it came to me that I have, for some time, been collecting odd pictures of what purport to be real gravestones and that I might enjoy sharing a few of them.  Since I have collected a fair number of these (25+ and growing), I’m not going to try to include them all, so I might do this again some time.  Anyway, here goes….
 
Many gravestones, of course, describe the person whose grave they mark.  For example:

This would seem to imply that the marriage referred to might have been less than entirely peaceful, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
 
Sometimes, the grave marker can refer to what the buried one did with his life.  Here’s a reference to an occupation, for example.

Sometimes, a reference to employment can be less explanatory and, for example, suggest some “last” words.

Or,

Of course, there MIGHT be a reference to some aspect of the buried’s habits, like this one which includes a comment from the living about the deceased.

Or the stone might include what could be construed as a comment from the “buried” for the consideration of the still living.  For example, there’s this….

Here’s another possibility (perhaps a teacher to his students?):

Or there’s always the ever popular:

It seems as though there are a lot of folks who have refused to take the whole notion of cemeteries and gravestone too completely seriously.  I think that may be a good thing.  We all know that death is going to happen to us.  But it isn’t something we need to dwell on for our entire life.  It might even be worth trying to use it to make our survivors’ lives a bit less painful.  After all, to return to my obsession with pictures of signs, the truth of this one simply cannot be denied.

I may well do this sort of thing again some time, but for now, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with my usual “Holiday Greetings.”
 
LLAP,
 
Dr. B