Gain Access To Stories In Stone: A Field Guide To Cemetery Symbolism And Iconography Depicted By Douglas Keister Accessible As Digital

pretty good, but Keister rarely misses an opportunity to dump in Bible quotes, and indeed much of the explanation of symbols is very Christiancentric.
Now, the photographs included all seem to be from North American and European cemeteries, and especially when you're looking at more historic graves, odds are the inhabitants would have at least feigned Christianity so perhaps it's reasonable for the sometimes rather strained interpretation to keep coming back to that.


On the other hand, this doesn't seem to be marketed as a particularly Christian publication, and there were a LOT of cases where citing and/or quoting scripture just really wasn't necessary, and he does it a lot more often than he quotes poetry or drama.
One memorable entry takes up an entire skinny page and is almost entirelyBible quotes, The entry for "harp" included a photo of one framed by shamrocks, but do we get a note of its significance in representing Ireland Nope, just Bible allusion.
There's a point where one feels proselytized at,

There was more than one entry that went through a bunch of commentary only to conclude with a sentence about how "you're not likely to ever see this on any graves, though.
" ! Then one can hardly make any firm conclusions about symbolism! The foot entry was especially egregious on this front, especially since the photo was closely cropped I'd bet you a dinner that it wasn't an isolated foot on that grave, but one that was part of a larger sculpture.
Other notes, especially when pulling in nods to nonWestern cultures which I'll allow he was good at attempting, it was just always after the Biblical stuff are pretty general: this symbol can mean XYZ in culture.
To my mind, the funerary context might affect things and change the interpretation from general use grapes and wheat coming to mind as such a situation.


In a couple cases the photograph included showed a less common usage of the motif rather than the more typical version.
I'll consider that point to be neutral, out of generosity,

It ends with a collection of photos of particularly interesting monuments, all of which are very understated in their titles.
Karl Marx's grave is simply named "political thinker, " Keats is merely "poet. " I detect some wry humor at play there, This handy little guide provides a very useful, if at times cursory, introduction to the fundamentals of Victorian cemetery culture, symbology, and iconogrpahy.
First, this is a great size to take traveling, And the color photos are also lovely, especially when so many other books are stuck in black and white.
This book is especially good if you're looking up symbols on tombs and finding out what they mean from animals to Greek letters to societies there's a multiple page listing of acronyms and what they mean.


This isn't the first book I'd recommend for scholarship but I have spent many hours on airplanes reading or just looking at the photos.
An interesting read that takes all of the iconographies of the cemeteries around the world and gives them a voice.
A little disappointed that the author did not explore my favorite cemetery Kensal Green in England sitelink wikipedia. org/wiki/Kensal but with my fave hometown location of Laurel Hill sitelink wikipedia. org/wiki/Laurel in full view, I added an extra star, If you enjoy cemeteries and learning about the symbols and iconography then you will love this books, Lots of neat pictures and fascinating stories about famous tombs, A very helpful book that explains so many things you see in a resting place, It also helped me decide what ornamentation would be best for an ancestor that did not have any sort of commemmoration even though he was "famous" in his day.
Very helpful and a good read! My sister bought this for me at the lovely gift shop of Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta GA.
This may not be everyone's idea of vacation reading, but I liked it, It makes me want to go explore some cemeteries, Remains to be seen whether I'll remember any of this, Nice little book whether you are just interested in cemetery history or using it as a field guide in cemetery exploration, although of course it does not cover all symbols or markings.
Concise and easy to understand text, and some beautiful photographs, I thought this was a great, well organized, and informative pocket guide, I have visited tons of cemeteries in North and South Carolina, Civil War memorials, and several cemeteries when I was stationed in Germany.
This book was really helpful in identifying the various symbols, statues, architectural designs, and iconography found especially in older cemeteries.
This was loaded with entries, explanations, color pictures, and locations of several large cemeteries throughout North America and western Europe.



My most recent cemetery visit was the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in Dayton, Ohio last fall.
The fall colors and changing tress laid overacres of quiet cemetery was an experience, The cemetery was built inand contained tons of features I found in this book,

InI was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base and in the neighboring city, Kaiserslautern, there was a huge cemetery and war memorial, Hauptfreidhof Kaiserslautern.
One of the only religious symbols I have seen from this book in reallife was the Cohanim Hands pgI found in the old Jewish section.


There I found a memorial dedicated to German soldiers from the area killed in WWI and WW, a small Orthodox section for killed Russian POWs from WW, and marked graves dedicated to children killed during Allied Bombing in WW.


Overall I would highly recommend this pocket guide if you are into visiting cemeteries and memorial gardens.
Thanks! Packed with information, I can't wait for my next cemetery visit to better understand design choices, and understand who the person had been.
I snatched this book off the shelf as soon as my eye landed on it, It has long surprised me that there was no comprehensive dictionary of the symbols found on gravestones, I know the topic is a complicated one, in that the same symbol can mean different things at different times or even at the same time in different locations.
Richard E. Meyers introduction acknowledges these difficulties, while casting headstones themselves as a cipher for the person buried beneath, Its a wonderful image with which to open the book,

Douglas Keister, author of Going Out in Style: The Architecture of Eternity has become the leading American photographer of gravestones.
His work appeared in American Cemetery magazines “Tomb of the Month” feature, documenting the resting places of the famous and infamous.
Photos included in this book have been recycled from other publications, but its nice to have

them gathered together in one place.


“A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography” is the truer part of the title, The books format tall and skinny encourages the reader to take it along to the graveyard, the way youd take a birding book to the park.
However, while the color plates make for lovely viewing, they add to the weight youll be toting, In addition, the unfortunate page design doesnt lend itself to identifying the symbol engraved on the stone before you.
Too often, photographs appear at the fold of the page, so you really have to crack the book open to examine them.
It makes it difficult to tell a sunflower from a daisy,

Still, there are an immense number of photographs in this book, often three to a page, so there is much on which to feast your eyes.
Theres food for thought as well, In the opening section I learned about the significance of tumulus graves and their link to ancient warriors, I wished for a specific citation I could have followed up on, but maybe thats just me,

The errors in the book and of course there must be some in a volume of this breadth are worth mentioning.
The caption beside the photo of John Keats headstone in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome says simply “Poet, ” That much is obvious, since the clearly visible epitaph reads, “This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poetHere lies one whose name was writ in water.
” Im nervous that Keister didnt realize he was recording Keats grave as he snapped the photo, printed it, chose it for the book.
If he missed something so widely known, can he be trusted on the finer points

As I followed up on that train of thought, I discovered an unraveling string.
The lyre adorning Keats gravestone isnt listed in the index, but the entries mentioned are interesting, The main listing differentiates a lyre from a harp as “more playfully designed, ” After some beautiful Chinese folktales, the lyre in Western mythology is summarized as “one of Apollos attributes, ” No mention is made that the lyre is chosen to adorn poets graves in specific reference to the Greek god who invented poetry.
Often lyres on headstones exhibit one or more broken strings, as in the case of Keats stone, to signify that the poets voice has been silenced.
Seems to me those might be things the casual graveyard wanderer would like to know,

All that aside, this is a lovely little book, stuffed with photos and intriguing tidbits, Consult it to add whimsy to your wanderings, but its not the final word, .