In a message dated 98-06-26 16:28:38 EDT, CKenter838@aol.com writes:

 Symbols in the Cemetery
 Contributed by ChasL45@aol.com

 We deal so often with abbreviations and scrawled handwriting that we must
 decipher. We should also understand some of the symbols we encounter when we
 go graveyard-hopping (as my Aunt Morbid likes to call it; in preference to
 bar-hopping.) They may no longer have meaning to us, but to
 many of our ancestors, the symbols chosen for their graves and vaults were
 once not simply ornamental in nature.

 The early Christians had to develop a system of signs in order to guide one
 another to secret meeting places for worship. You know, the early church
 members were called “atheists”, and not because they did not worship a
 God. It was because they ONLY worshipped ONE god, not a plurality of gods, so
 they were atheists - without godS.

 One of the symbols they chose, a common enough symbol and apparently
 innocuous, was the anchor. An anchor, within a Christian context, was really
 a disguised cross, and carries with it the connotation that Christ is the
 anchor that prevents the Christian from drifting loose and being lost
 forever.

 An anchor in a more modern (post-medieval times) context may make
 reference to a person having been a Christian or simply as a sailor. An
anchor  with a broken chain consistently symbolizes the breaking of  the soul 
from  life  - death.

 A perpetual favorite, of course, is the angel. The angel in latter days often
 symbolizes the image that parents want to hold of a dead child - now an
 angel,  a cherub as depicted in Renaissance art.

 A crescent is commonly used to show that a person was a follower of the
 Islamic faith. The use of this symbol is also applied by some, but not all,
 Black Muslims.

 The Christian views the cross as the instrument of death that led to the
 resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross was only an instrument, not the
 representation of the Truth
 who died in the place of sinners. It has been popular through the centuries
 for some faiths.

 However, the symbol of the cross may also represent different nationalist
 divisions, such as the division between the Western Church and the Eastern
 Church.

 The Japanese also used a cross, but for them it represented the four quarters
 of the earth, although sometimes it meant the four compass directions.
 Crowns commonly refer either to a heavenly reward awaiting the dead one, or
 perhaps worldly achievements of the deceased.

 Somewhere between the Middle Ages and the 17th or 18th century, having a dog
 on your gravestone or marker or vault came to mean two different
 things. Placed most commonly at the feet of medieval women, they signified
 loyalty and inferiority in the chivalric order. More modern applications came
 to suggest that the one buried there was worthy of love or affection or, at
 the least, loyalty. Again, as another non sequitur, have you wondered why you
 refer to your feet as dogs, as in "my dogs are really barking", or "my dogs
 are killing me"? In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,
 the most handsome, most expensive, and most desirable shoes were those made
 from dogskin - and especially Dalmatian.

 A small bird that often appears in both Christian and Jewish cemeteries is
 the  dove, symbol most Christians as the Holy Spirit, and to Jews as a symbol of
 peace. Europeans used to see the dove also as a symbol of purity and
 spirituality because of its white coloring.

 While it is rare to see one, dragons sometimes appear on Western (European)
 grave markers. Almost always, they are shown as being slain by St. George, an
 allegory for the defeat of sin by the Christian life.

 Europeans rarely depict dragons on their gravestones. When they appear, Saint
 George rides out to kill them. This symbolizes triumph over sin. And when one
 triumphs over Sin, one has also won relief from the most stinging qualities
 of  Death: the punishments for our sins.

 The bleeding heart, a rather graphic image somewhat unique to Roman
 Catholicism, is a depiction of a torn and blood-dripping cardiac muscle,
 wrested from the bosom of the Christ, and commonly surrounded by a crown of
 thorns.The heart of Christ represents Jesus' suffering for the sins of
 mankind, and marks that grave as that of a Catholic.

 One of my favorites is the hourglass, a symbol for time from ancient
 days. Hourglasses are commonly depicted with the lower portion full of sand,
 and the top empty - the glass has run out of time. Frequently, hourglasses
 will be shown with wings, as in flight. A glass in flight may refer to either
 the fleeting nature of life ("Tempus fugit"), or it may be a somewhat oblique
 reference to the resurrection. I prefer the earthly reference as more
 likely. Perhaps one day when science believes it can raise the dead and bring
 them to life again, we will start using digital watches as symbols on our
 grave stones - a new battery, a new life...

 When you see a key on a marker, look for Greek letters. If no Greek letters
 appear, the buried one probably was NOT Phi Beta Kappa. Instead, the key or
 keys may represent the keys to the Kingdom of God (and that is how you should
 interpret it if you see a key or keys in the hand of an angel or a person on
 the marker), or it may indicate spiritual revelation or knowledge.

 More often than not, a lamb will mark the grave of a child. Lambs have
 historically stood for innocence, and for being a member of the flock of the
 Good Shepherd.

 When you see a lamp - usually one that looks as you might think Aladdin’s
 lamp  looked - the object of that symbol is to let you know that either here was
 one  with knowledge, or who attained the immortality through the Holy Spirit.

 Scythes and sickles represent the wheat that will be separated from the
 chaff,  the fields that are white unto harvest, and the way in which death levels all
 of us. It reminds us all that the harvest - whether the harvest is that of
 death taking life, or the harvest of Christ taking his people to be separated
 from the lost - is imminent. And it tells us that death comes swiftly and  efficiently.

 Is it a rising sun or a setting sun? Is this a case of “po-ta-to” or “po- tah-to”? 
Well, a setting sun is the passing from life to death, and a rising  sun is the 
New Birth of Christianity, or the new day dawning in hope of  Heaven  or 
reincarnation. Trouble is, how do you know which one is depicted on the stone?

 For many, the use of a sun is an application of the Scripture which tells the
 Christian that the “Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His  wings”

 An empty or a draped urn may make reference to the departure of the soul and
 spirit from the body. (Note that theologically, humans have both a spirit and
 a soul...Animals have only one of the two.) Since urns have historically held
 the ashes of the dead, it seems  more likely that urns and the shrouds that
often accompany them in gravestone  art reflect rather the fact and perhaps 
the finality of death.

 This is as brief a treatment as I can give to symbols on gravestones and
 graveyards.