Memorial History
Memorial History. Early markers were rugged stones, a heavy rock placed on a grave to keep those buried beneath from climbing out (or perhaps floating out in a heavy rain). Soon it came about that the living inscribed the stone with a reminder of the departed.
Ancient grave stones had scary motifs such as skulls, cross-bones or angels of death. The intent was to scare those who passed by out of dying, scared of death the beholder would live longer.
The Victorian era brought to history, a cemeterian renaissance. Elaborate commemoratives replaced scare tactics. Natural landscape became beauty with winding roads and pleasant fields.
With it, imagery became less about death and more about the benefit of reflection upon the soul, the deceased’s lifework, religion and redemption.
Epitaphs on tombstones expressed the personalities and accomplishments of the deceased, marking their existence here on earth. Often times the only history that remains of a person’s existence is that found on the tombstone' memorial.
In fact it is through the memorial that people survive death. When their name ceases to be mentioned, it becomes as though they never existed.
Still hope swayed practice. If remembered, they exist, if they exist, then they shall rise again. Angels, emissaries between the physical and spiritual realm, mark cemetery landscapes. Sometimes a pipe was driven into burial mounds to serve as speaking tubes to communicate with the deceased or to allow the spirit passage. Corpses were buried with their feet to the east and heads toward the west in preparation to rise up and face the resurrection day, “when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised”.
Burials began to take place near churches so that the souls of the dead could benefit from hearing the prayers and hymns of the faithful. Like the best seat in the church, so too the best resting plot was premium. Thus social status determined where one could be buried.
The favored was to the east, which was nearest the church, and would have the best view of the rising sun at that great Judgment Day of God Almighty. While the southern area of the churchyard was reserved for folks of lesser status.
The north side was the “Devil’s Domain,” stillborns, bastards and suicides were buried here. Suicides, however, were not allowed through the church yard gate, so their body had to be handed over the fence or stone wall.
Due to a shortage of space the north side was eventually “exorcized” to make room for new burials such as “strangers,” or other unknowns who were not considered damned, but lacked the status and wealth of the upper class's eastern plots, nor qualified for the southern areas reserved for parishioners of more common rank.
Space became congested and overcrowded. Bones in unmarked graves were dug up to make space for new graves. As a result those without adequate memorials simply ceased to exist.
Horrified, and to avoid this fate, Shakespeare wrote his own epitaph “Good friends, for Jesus’ sake forbear, to dig the bones enclosed here! Blest be the man that spares these stones, and curst be he that moves my bones.” And so was memorialized the great English writer who died April 23, 1616.
Slaves and lepers were buried outside the grave yard wall. Today, “outside the wall” is reserved for pets.
Through placing of tombstones and memorials, we immortalize through out history, those who died. We loved them. And do not want them forgotten. God forbid that “out of sight, out of mind” should befall those we care about. Forgotten and neglected.
Cultural rituals handed down across the voyage of time, direct mourning survivors to look toward Heaven and know that the worries of this world have passed. Memorials represent hope to a bereaved family.
A mere name on a stone acknowledges to all visitors that the person named was real, not just a figment of history.
Today, the e-memorial of the internet makes it possible for all to visit, regardless of distance or handicap. And opens up a whole new world where each visitor can leave their regards in a guest book. To reflect, to pray, to cry, to rejoice in celebrating entry into eternal life. For Jesus has promised to collect His saints.
Like the roadside memorial that marks the place of some tragic end; the web e-memorial marks in memory, a spot along the path of energy fields which traverses the universe. An anchor in the digital matrix of a material world, resting in the recesses of Eternal conception.
