30 June 2011

Skeleton Love

Last night I went to a presentation at church about cemeteries.  The speaker was the oldest woman in our congregation, Betty, who is 96-years-old.  She spent 10 years studying Scottish graveyards with her friend Bunty (I'm having a really hard time getting over that name--it's so British boarding school), and last night she told us about some of her experiences and explained some of the symbols on Scottish gravestones, which I find FASCINATING.

I came home all inspired and wishing we still had our car so we could try again to find the Logie Pert Cemetery (last time we went looking for it we forgot to bring the GPS coordinates and never located it).  Instead I satisfied myself with a quick trip to our nearest cemetery this morning.  Our new closest library happens to be on the way to the cemetery so I stopped there too.  Pretty, yes?  Much prettier than the main branch which is in a mall.

Library

The unfortunate thing about our nearest cemetery is that it was established in 1845, so all of the carvings are quite stylized and restrained.  Like these:





Scottish cemeteries before the 19th century are the ones full of the awesome.  Like these:


That skeleton at the bottom is one of the best things I've ever seen.  I'm not sure you can really see it, but he's got a very happy grin.

Serious trumpet action from those angels.

4 comments:

ldsjaneite said...

If that skeleton had ears, he'd be deaf!

Lunicrax said...

Awesomeness! We should have brought you down to the crypt in the Onsala church to see the sarcophagii of our own pirate and his wife. They have some serious skulls with crossed bones in relief. It's excellent.

Anonymous said...

I love it. I want a skeleton on my headstone.

eliana23 said...

I think I'll design headstones with the kids today--good family fun.

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