Scrolls: Merely Decorative or a Deeper Meaning?



Forks Cemetery, Stockertown, PA

I've been on hiatus for a few months, working on some other projects, so I hope I wasn't missed too much.  :)  I still have been visiting cemeteries and capturing symbols with my camera.  Sometimes symbols that were popular in the 19th century were more decorative rather than deeply symbolic. 

A scroll on a tombstone can represent the Scriptures from the Bible (as in the Dead Sea Scrolls), or it can represent the life of the deceased, with only the present unfurled, and their past life and their future afterlife rolled up, hidden.  It also could simply be a way for late 19th-century stone cutters to show off their skills with the just-invented pneumatic or steam-powered tools that could take cold, hard marble or granite and make it ripple and flow like parchment or sheeting.   The particulars about the deceased does look nicer carved on a scroll than just placed on a plain flat tombstone, I must say.

Sometimes the scroll will be "ripped," perhaps symbolizing how death can rip apart a life.  Many times, a tombstone can look like a cairn (or pile of man-made rocks placed to mark a location) with a scroll draped over the cairn.  Usually a cross tops the cairn, and this is a way of Christianizing a pagan tradition of using a cairn to mark the location of a burial.  No matter what the reason a tombstone bears a scroll, I find them beautiful.  As if you thought I would feel any other way!  Enjoy!




Dunmore Cemetery, Dunmore, PA

Old St. Aloysius Cemetery, Pottstown, PA

Effort Cemetery, Effort, PA

Abington Presbyterian Cemetery, Abington, PA

Arlington Cemetery, Upper Darby, PA

Boehm's UCC Cemetery, Blue Bell, PA

Bristol Cemetery, Bristol, PA

New Hanover Lutheran Cemetery, Gilbertsville, PA

Dunmore Cemetery, Dunmore, PA

Dunmore Cemetery, Dunmore, PA

Durham Cemetery, Durham, PA

Edgewood Cemetery, Pottstown, PA

Elmwood Cemetery, Shepherdstown, WV

Evergreen Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA

Fairview Cemetery, Middletown, NJ

Forks Cemetery, Stockertown, PA

Forty Fort Cemetery, Forty Fort, PA

Freeland Cemetery, Freeland, PA

Glen Dyberry Cemetery, Honesdale, PA

Glen Dyberry Cemetery, Honesdale, PA

Glenwood Cemetery, West Long Branch, NJ

Indian Orchard Cemetery, Indian Orchard, PA

Odd Fellows Cemetery, Tamaqua, PA

Jordan UCC Cemetery, Walbert, PA

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Mauch Chunk Cemetery, Jim Thorpe, PA

Montgomery Cemetery, Norristown, PA

Montrose Cemetery, Montrose, PA

Mount Hope Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Mount Prospect Cemetery, Neptune, NJ

Mount Zion Cemetery, Pottsgrove, PA

Mount Zion Cemetery, Pottsgrove, PA

New Hanover Lutheran Cemetery, Gilbertsville, PA

Northwood Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Old St. Aloysius Cemetery, Pottstown, PA

Protestant Cemetery, Nesquehoning, PA

St. Peter's Episcopal Cemetery, Lewes, DE

Salem Churchyard, Bangor, PA

St. Paul's Blue Church Cemetery, Coopersburg, PA

Sunnyside Cemetery, Tunkhannock, PA

Towamencin Mennonite Cemetery, Harleysville, PA

Trinity Lutheran Cemetery, Taneytown, MD

West Laurel Hill, Bala Cynwyd, PA

West Long Branch United Methodist Cemetery, West Long Branch, NJ

Woodlands Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Zion's Stone Church Cemetery, New Ringgold, PA

Zion's Stone Church Cemetery, New Ringgold, PA

 

Glen Dyberry Cemetery, Honesdale, PA

 

Heidelberg Union Cemetery, Slatington, PA

Edgewood Cemetery, Pottstown, PA

Elmwood Cemetery, Shepherdstown, WV

 

Hollenback Cemetery, Wilkes Barre, PA

Hollenback Cemetery, Wilkes Barre, PA

Lansdale Cemetery, Lansdale, PA

 

Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Newark, NJ

Mount Zion Cemetery, Pottsgrove, PA

New Goshenhoppen Union Cemetery, East Greenville, PA

 

Sharpsburg Lutheran Cemetery, Sharpsburg, MD

St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery, Lafayette Hill, PA

West Long Branch United Methodist Cemetery, West Long Branch, NJ

Pennepack Baptist Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Flourtown, PA