Graven Images

Anyone else love cemeteries? I don't know what it is, but I can hardly resist them. Around here ours aren't that old in the grand scheme of things, but insofar as European burials in America they are some of the oldest we have. Some of the stone carving is beautiful and I always find a small, colonial cemetery to be very peaceful and soothing.

Anyway, here are some of my favorites -

Old Hill cemetery - 35mm film scan from ages ago
http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...8_SXp4m-XL.jpg

Pet cemetery (you have no idea how hard it is not to write Pet Sematary!) in Massachusetts; still used today.
http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...2_tG9Bb-XL.jpg

Bullfrog Mine cemetery outside the ghost town of Rhyolite Nevada -
http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...3_Bn9Ju-XL.jpg

Family plot on hill in a cemetery from 1740 -
http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...9_LAoGs-XL.jpg

Sarah aged 9, 1762 -
http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...8_EwoNx-XL.jpg

Anyway...I could go on forever since I have so many, but this oughta hold ya'. Thanks for looking.

I love graveyards. In fact, I took a couple today from an old graveyard in halifax. Your's are very good. I love the last one-great shot!

Last one for me also. I also love the old gravesites, as they tell such stories and have so much history within them if you look long enough and a little research.

Really cool shots here. I love those old tombstones with the skulls at the top. Kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. :)

I actually really like the ones with the skulls. This one is older and less stylized -

http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...7_GFSQV-XL.jpg

And if you look at the one tipped toward the camera, you can see another -

http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...4_hozSz-XL.jpg

thanks for the compliments all around. Graveyards & cemeteries aren't everyone's cuppa, but I dig them.







no pun intended.

Cool shots. I have a few myself. I hope you don't mind me jumping into your thread.

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oooh you dirty thread-jumper you!


Kidding. I don't mind. See how differently styled the skulls became over the decades? it fascinates me.

Here's another from the same cemetery as Sarah's grave.

http://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Graves...6_qqx5J-XL.jpg

It's such a pretty stone.

Cool stuff! We have nothing as old as some of those out here.

I still wonder why the character f used to represent an "s" but no longer does. Why did it change?

I don't know...I can see if there's a reference to it in my book about early American grave markers. The original Declaration was printed the same way and I noticed that the f-like S seems random, but there's probably a pattern. On Sarah's marker you can see both styles used.