Gravely Speaking

The gravestone of Boston shopkeeper, Joseph Tapping, who died in 1678 at the age of 23, is one of the most famous in the city.  Just inside the gates fo the King’s Chapel Cemetery is his elaborate carved tombstone.

 

In the top of the gravestone is the winged skull representing the fleeting nature of life the soul with the admonition “Memento Mori”, “remember death”.  Above the winged skill is the hourglass symbolic of time running out.

 

The incised gravestone carving was created by the unnamed carver known simply as “the Charlestown Stonecutter”.  In the scene on the face of the tombstone is carved the epic struggle between the death pictured as a skeleton armed with a candle snuffer and an arrow.   In this timeless fight, a bearded Father Time is trying to hold Death back and save death for another day.  

On the 1745 gravestone of Rebecca Sanders at the King’s Chapel Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, a skeleton and Father Time circle around a candle, with the figure of death, the skeleton, ready to snuff out the flame.  The symbolism is clear, the candle represents the spirit and the soul of the person.  When the flame is snuffed out the smoke circles toward the sky, just as the spirit leaves the body when it dies and the soultakes flight toward Heaven.

 

Elton John’s song, “Candle in the Wind”, written to honor Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana, also uses this symbolism.  A line of the song refers to their early deaths when he sings, “Your candle’s burned out long before your legend ever will.”  The flame of each of their candles have been snuffed out, their souls taken flight but the memory of both of them are still with us.

 

This strafed gravestone is the obvious target of a large Kamikaze bird with some gastrointestinal problems.  Unfortunately for me, and you the viewer, I was not equiped on my visit to the King’s Chapel Cemetery in Boston to wipe it clean before I snapped this.  But, the imagery on the 22-year old Rebecca Gerrish’s gravestone is spectacular.  Here a candle is being snuffed out by a skeleton holding the snuffer and a winged Father Time holding an hourglass trying to stop the inevitable.  The symbolism is hard to miss.  The flame on the candle being put out represents a young life that is over.  Father Time reminds us that life is short and the visage of the skeleton calls to the viewer to remember that death is always near.