I would like to have a better name for these monuments. Nothing that quite matches shows up in the few contemporary catalogs I've been able to consult. There's an open book sitting on a podium. A few small logs provide a distant link to the classic "Tree Shaped Tombstones" that make up this series.
Here's a nice one, I suspect it has been cleaned and perhaps re-carved a bit as it is in much better shape than the rest of the examples we'll see.
Nice, and you were clearly able to customize them. Sometimes the book would have a phrase. This one says Rests in Peace in German.
On some other examples the book was left blank. You could also have a design on the front. This monument indicates that it's owner was a Woodman, specifically a member of Modern Woodmen of America.
But some of these have the front pattern so reduced in legibility that it is almost gone.
To zoom in closer and play with the lighting a bit:
It looks like the Pearly Gates of Heaven with an anchor above them. The lettering is so weathered that I can't make it out. I can think of no reason for them to be obliterated on purpose, bashing out things on monuments as a "Damnatio Memoriae" went out with the Roman era. I suspect it was just some design flaw where the combination of water running down the front along with whatever stone this was, just made things dissolve.
I suppose someone out there other than me will look at this and be reminded of the Doors of Durin from the Lord of the Rings. I admit I did not strike the stone with a staff and speak the password. Perhaps if I had...
1 comment:
I always assumed those books were linked to the Book of Life mentioned in Revelations.
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