Gravely Speaking

Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York

In the article, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111, 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, written by Elisabeth Roark, she categorized the eight most commonly found types of graveyard angels—which included recording angels.

The recording angels depicted here are shown with wings. Winged figures in a cemetery are instantly recognize as an angel–a messenger of God.  However, Christian art did not depict angels with wings until the fourth century.  Before then, angels were represented in several different forms–sometimes in human form, but also represented as a dove, or even just as a hand reaching down to Earth from the Heavens.  Beginning with the reign of Constantine, angels began being depicted with wings, as we commonly portray them today. “Based on the winged Greco-Roman Nike or Victory, their form thus embodied Christianity’s promised triumph over death. Medieval and Renaissance tombs often featured angels that attended images of the deceased.”

Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky

This recording angel, carved out of white marble, has an open book resting on his knee and a quill in his hand.  The angel is youthful, dressed in a short, knee-length tunic. These depictions are reminiscent of “boyish winged figures that appeared on ancient Roman sarcophagi and are considered another possible source for Christian angels.”

The angel is clearly poised to write in the book.  Here the angel is registering the name of the deceased into the Book of Life.  In Judaism and Christianity, the names of the righteous were recorded in the Book of Life; they were assured entry into Heaven.

Fairmount Cemetery, Huntingburg, Indiana

The Book is referenced many times in the Bible (King James Version), including Revelation, Chapter 20,

Verse 12: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”

Verse 13: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”

Verse 14: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.  This is the second death.”

Verse 15: “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Not all of the recording angels are depicted writing names into books. The angel in the bas-relief from the Cave Hill Cemetery at Louisville, Kentucky, is writing the name onto a shield.

Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky

And in some cases, the recording angel is depicted as a cherub.

Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

In the article, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111, 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, written by Elisabeth Roark, she categorized the eight most commonly found types of graveyard angels—which included pointing angels.

Erie Cemetery, Erie, Pennsylvania

The hand with a finger pointing upwards is a commonly found motif. The finger pointing upwards, indicates the soul traveling to Heaven, sometimes a presumptuous claim, though a hopeful one. The finger pointing upwards motif was often coupled with other symbols:

• a willow tree, a traditional symbol of sorrow indicating while the soul of their loved one has gone to Heaven, the family on Earth mourns the loss and grieves for their loved one
• the crown symbolizing victory. Sometimes the combination of the images represent the flight of the soul from the earthly realm to the Heavenly realm

Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

However, the angel pointing upwards originated from depictions of angels at Jesus’s sepulcher sitting beside His tomb. Roark writes, “pointing angels were often connected with guardian angels but attended to the bereaved as much as the deceased, fulfilling their role as messengers.”

Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

Westview Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia

Elisabeth L. Roark wrote an article about angels titled, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111, 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, in which she categorized the eight most commonly found types of graveyard angels—grouped the task they performed: soul-bearing; praying; decorating and guarding; pointing; recording; trumpeting; sword-bearing (archangel Michael); and child angels.

Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York

Angels are mentioned over 270 times in the Bible but of the eight categories of angels that Roark describes in her article, this is the only type with this task that is not specifically defined in the Bible. Roark notes that decorating graves with flowers originates with the ancient Greeks, this type of symbolism, however, is something newly found in graveyards of the 19^th Century. After the Civil War, it became popular to decorate graves lavishly with flowers. Roark writes, “Like their live counterparts, the angels’ sculpted flowers suggest the parallels drawn at this time between the cyclical nature of plant life and human birth, death, and resurrection.”

Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC

Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC

Elisabeth L. Roark wrote an article about angels titled, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111, 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, in which she categorized the eight most commonly found types of graveyard angels—grouped the task they performed: soul-bearing; praying; decorating and guarding; pointing; recording; trumpeting; sword-bearing (archangel Michael); and child angels.

Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri

The winged protectors served to watch over the “soul while living, removed occasions of sin and provided protection when danger threatened, interceded on their charges’ behalf, attended at death, eased the transition to the next world, conducted the soul to Heaven, and looked after the gravesite and the deceased’s remains until resurrection.” These were busy angels. In addition to those duties, the praying angels served as an intercessor conveying messages from their charges to Heaven. These angels usually are looking upward toward the Heavens, hands clasped together in prayer, sometimes coupled with emblems of faith, such as, anchors and crosses, often clad in toga-like clothing.

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

c. 1860, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

Elisabeth L. Roark wrote an article about angels titled, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111, 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, in which she wrote Catholics had embraced the concept of angels but Protestants were slow to. That changed in the second half of the 19^th Century. She explains that there was an “invasion” of angels in rural garden cemeteries, which were for the most part Protestant graveyards. Roark explains in the article that Protestants accepted the concept of angels because they not only expressed a message of consolation but were also utilitarian—these angels performed tasks.

c. 1850, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

In this category of angels, the angels are depicted carrying the soul to Heaven. In most of the examples the author found, the angels were carved in bas-relief because of the complexity of carving them in the round.

c. 1860, Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio

All four examples are from the second half of the 19^th Century—two from Green-Wood Cemetery at Brooklyn, New York, and two from Spring Grove Cemetery at Cincinnati, Ohio. In all but one case, the angels are bearing children’s souls to Heaven.

c. 1865-1895, Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio

In the 2007 edition of Markers, XXIV, published by the Association for Gravestone Studies, Greenfield, Massachusetts, Elisabeth L. Roark wrote an article about angels titled, “Embodying Immortality: Angels in America’s Rural Garden Cemeteries, 1850—1900”, pages 56 – 111.

Roark argues in her piece that while Catholic scholastics wrote a great deal about angels that some Protestants counterparts dismissed angels as “a hodge-podge.” She further writes that Protestants were more or less ambivalent about theories about angels that largely originated with a work about angels titled On the Celestial Hierarchy written around 500 CE by a Greek known as Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite. This writing stimulated other theologians, such as Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, to write about angels.

Roark argues that angels were not “Romantic attempts to beautify death.” She writes, “while this was part of their appeal, angel monuments are far more complex in meaning and can act to reveal manifestations of popular Christian beliefs.”

According the article, angels come onto the scene in rural garden cemeteries in a big way starting in 1850 and then throughout the rest of the century. Though angels come in many variations and forms, in her study of 14 rural cemeteries from each region of America, Roark found that the majority of angels fall into the following eight categories:

1. Soul-bearing Angels
2. Praying Angels
3. Angels who decorate and watch over the grave
4. Pointing angels
5. Recording angels
6. Trumpet angels
7. Michael the archangel
8. Child angels