Digging for Answers – January 14, 2010

Symbols & Words, What Do They Mean?
by Randy Seaver

Welcome to the Digging for Answers column on the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal.

This column will depend on your submission of questions about cemeteries, gravestones, burial practices, and other topics that concern a Graveyard Rabbit (other than where his next carrot is coming from!).  So please send some questions to the editor, who will pass them along and keep the columnist hopping.

A reader wants to know: 

There is an interesting symbol and Latin words on my ancestor's gravestone - what do they mean?

As you surmise, they mean something!  But it depends on the context of the symbol and the words.  Is it a symbol that conveys a message about the deceased, or does it mean that s/he was a member of a certain group?  These symbols or emblems may be only decorative or have an explicit, or even a hidden, meaning.  The Latin words (or any lettering) may be a motto or saying of a specific group that the deceased was a member of.

There are a number of websites that have interpretations of carved symbols or designs found on the gravestone that tell a story, for instance:

Wikipedia has a list of decorative emblems in their "Headstone" entry.

Grave Addiction has many Gravestone Symbols listed.

The Association for Gravestone Studies has a list of  common symbols used in the 17th and 18th centuries and symbols used in the 19th century.

Karin Sprague Stone Carvers has another nice list of symbols with some explanations.

About.com has a photo gallery of cemetery symbolism.

Stones of Faith: Pennsylvania Germans & Their Gravestone has Pennsylvania German headstone art and symbols with many examples.

The Cemetery Club has an extensive list of gravestone symbolism.

Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols is a blog with descriptions of specific gravestone iconography or art, including fraternal organizations.

Oregon Parks & Recreation Department: Heritage Programs has a sampling of pictures of many Oregon graveyard symbols.

United States Department of Veterans Affairs has the official US Veterans Affairs list of approved "emblems of belief" for military headstones.

The list above is not exhaustive.  There may be gravestone symbols for different religious faiths, different localities around the world, etc. 

If you cannot match what you've found on a gravestone, then do a search for terms that describe the symbol or words in question.  If there is a Latin phrase, then search for that specific phrase and the organization or group with the motto or saying likely will be found.

Until next time, why don't you check out your gravestone pictures and see if there are some symbols on the stones that might lead you missed the first time you analyzed the photograph or gravestone.

Now, I wonder why there is no "carrot" symbol for us graveyard bunnies?