Grave Markers and Their Meanings
Happy October! We love spooky season, and Charleston is a fantastic city in which to celebrate. You can explore shadowy old buildings and winding alleyways, admire gnarled old oak trees dripping with Spanish moss or resurrection ferns, and stroll through graveyards full of headstones with dates spanning three centuries. While we lack autumn colors and sweater weather, we make up for it in spirit: every corner seems to hide a ghost or two, and many of the city’s legends can send a shiver down your spine.
As you explore the graveyards (attached to a church!) and cemeteries (independent plots of land) throughout Charleston, you may notice repeating motifs in the designs of headstones, memorials, and other burial markers. In a city so old, beliefs and cultural norms can evolve many times over, and what may once have been perfectly normal to put on a headstone can now look quite odd to us. Here we’ll explore some of the common motifs you’ll see.
Death’s Head Motif
Often depicted as a skull with wings, the death’s head motif is common on headstones from the 17th, 18th, and early-to-mid 19th centuries. Other variations include a simple smiling skull or a reaper-like figure. While including a skull on a gravestone might seem overly gothy or morbid today, for centuries in Western culture it was perfectly normal to include a reminder of death. The Death’s Head acts as a memento mori - literally, “remember that you must die” - a common motif in Western visual art which dates back to ancient Rome. It was meant to be a humbling message: enjoy your life, but know that it will end - and that everything you have is sweeter because it will someday, like the person commemorated by the headstone, be gone.
Variations with wings can also symbolize the ascent of the soul to heaven, another common visual theme.
Veils
You may notice headstones and monuments decorated with stone carved to resemble fabric, which may be draped over the headstone, pulled aside like a curtain, or otherwise incorporated into the grave marker’s design. This is a common representation of the concept of the veil between life and death - a separation between this life and the next, or a barrier between physical and spiritual realms. There’s a lot of mythology to unpack here, but the drapery is frequently used as a symbol of death or loss, but with the suggestion that it is temporary - that rather than being gone forever, or on the other side of a wall, the barrier between the lost loved one and the living is as thin and fluid and permeable as a veil.
Urns
Urns, cups, and other decorative vessels have an ancient connection to mourning - to the ancient Greeks, the urn was a symbol of death itself: both in the sense of representing an empty vessel, the spirit gone; and in the more literal sense of urns being used to store cremated remains.
Later, Christian cultures also adopted the urns and cups, continuing the tradition of representing the body as a vessel, but also incorporating concepts of the Eucharist, abundance, and blessings.
Obelisks, Columns, & Trees
These imposing grave markers typically indicate that the life was long and full, and that the person is remembered as powerful or having a substantial presence.
Some take the form of geometric obelisks, popularized in 19th century England after the discovery of the Rosetta stone and inspired by ancient Egyptian designs. The shape represents solidified rays of the sun. You may also see Classical columns, often fluted and with Ionic or Corinthian capitals. Trees are another motif you may see in these larger markers, often oaks or other species known for long lives and durability. If a tree marker has many broken-off branches, that can be a nod to other deceased family members who may be buried nearby.
Many times, these markers are whole, but you will occasionally see one created to look as though it had broken - a split column, or a massive crack in a sculpted tree. These “damaged” markers represent a life cut short, and grieve the potential lost with the death of the person whom they represent.
Hands
Human hands are another common motif carved onto grave markers. They can be clasped, often indicated a married couple finally joined in death; they can be holding various objects, which each symbolize something different: a book, faith; a heart, charity, especially in a society of oddfellows; a hand reaching down and grasping a chain represents the hand of God pulling souls to Himself. Fingers may point downward to serve as a memento mori of sudden death, or upward to refer to the reward of the righteous, showing the way home.
Birds
Birds in general typically represent the soul in flight, and are often depicted as ascending to heaven. A descending bird, typically a dove, represents the holy spirit coming to earth to escort the deceased on their final spiritual journey. If a dove is depicted lying dead, it typically symbolizes a life cut short, not unlike the broken column.
Plants
Plants, symbols of life, are often depicted on markers for the dead. Common motifs include ivy, a sprawling evergreen that represents long life, rebirth, friendship and fidelity; willows, whose weeping branches mimic and symbolize the posture of grief for those left behind; and lilies, which are most frequently seen on women’s graves and represent purity, marriage, and honor the Virgin Mary. Various plant motifs are often combined with other designs - an urn may be wreathed with lilies, or carved ivy may crawl up a broken column. An entire visual language can be created and interpreted from the combinations of various symbols which may be incorporated on a grave marker.
It’s important to remember all aspects of the history of death and dying here in Charleston. As we study the graveyards and cemeteries of this city, it’s vital that we look at who is buried here, but also consider who is not. These elaborate, expensive grave markers were created primarily for wealthy white citizens of Charleston, and theirs are the names and stories we are expected to remember and respect. However, Charleston and its wealth was built with enslaved labor, and much of its beauty was paid for with wealth derived from the labor of enslaved people. It is vitally important that we remember that just as these people were not treated fairly in life, they also frequently were not respected in death. Death may be thought of by many as a great equalizer, but nowhere is that so clearly not the case as in Charleston. We ask that you respectfully visit this city’s graveyards and cemeteries, and educate yourself on the lives and deaths of the enslaved people who were not granted the same rights in life, nor the same respect in death. It is up to us to learn about them when we can, and honor their memories now and in perpetuity.
Interested in learning more about burial grounds, grave symbolism, and death culture? These are some of our favorite resources:
Preservation Society: African American Cemeteries Restoration Project
Charleston Time Machine: The Forgotten Dead
Uncovered Burial Ground of 36 Enslaved Africans in Charleston
Taphology (study of gravesites) Ologies Episode
Thanatology (study of death & dying in culture) Ologies episode
