Scottish gravestones - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Scottish or Lowland Scottish gravestone is unique to the north of the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

. The study of Scottish Lowland

Scottish Lowlands

The Scottish Lowlands is a name given to the Southern half of Scotland.The area is called a' Ghalldachd in Scottish Gaelic, and the Lawlands ....

Gravestones is essential to the overall study of British monumental inscription

Monumental inscription

A monumental inscription is an inscription, typically carved in stone, on a grave marker, cenotaph, memorial plaque, church monument or other memorial....

s. The level of symbolism and detail on Scottish stones reached a peak during the 18th century.

Early tombs

The earliest tombs in Scotland are now lost. If Palaeolithic man ever set foot in that country, all traces have been wiped away. However, numerous Mesolithic

Mesolithic

The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....

and Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

tombs, cairn

Cairn

Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...

s, chambered cairns and burial mounds have been discovered and studied. The Bronze

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

and Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

s may have pioneered the concept of a modern graveyard

Graveyard

A graveyard is any place set aside for long-term burial of the dead, with or without monuments such as headstones...

for their remains have been found grouped together in much the same manner as today. In addition to using traditional burial methods, they would also create allotments for their dead. Iron Age burials are, however currently rare in Britain.

Early church burials

British archaeological evidence indicates that the custom of burying the dead in or around a church began as early as the 8th century. By the early 12th century, Saxons

Saxons

The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

, Normans

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

and Flemish

County of Flanders

The County of Flanders was one of the territories constituting the Low Countries. The county existed from 862 to 1795. It was one of the original secular fiefs of France and for centuries was one of the most affluent regions in Europe....

knights were given lands throughout Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The new lords built chapels and churches on their new estates. With so many servants, beneficiaries and eventually Tenants, the Church land was soon used to bury the dead of the surrounding village.

Pre-Reformation

Very few pre-Reformation

Scottish Reformation

The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the Papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in...

stones exist today and those that do are often removed from their original position and given care and shelter in a local museum. Medieval stone coffins, or sarcophagi, are more abundant.

Since 1457, it had been the habit to organise the local Wappenshaw (presenting weapon

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

ry for inspection) in the local graveyards. The resulting wounds on the fine sandstone of many rare stones has left them defaced by the continuous bombardment of missiles.

Post-Reformation

The 16th century, the century in which Scotland played host to her own Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, was a quiet one for Scottish gravestones. It seems that they were seldom produced and are indeed a rare sight today in our old graveyards. More stones were produced in the 17th and 18th centuries.

17th-century stones

By the early 17th century, many ancient graveyards had become swollen with so many bodies that their lands were recognisable as burial grounds. Some sites have been subjected to an increase of several feet in height. By the middle of the century, we begin to see more identification marks on the stones. Heraldic devices, craft tools, symbols of mortality

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

and the name, date of birth and often the address of the deceased began to be crammed onto the limited surfaces of the stone.

One side of the headstone was dedicated to written identification while the other was to be used for symbolic expression. The symbolic elements would usually reveal the man's occupation while reminding the living viewer that he or she too must depart this earth sooner or later.

18th-century stones

Perhaps the most ambitious period of Headstone carving. Indeed, it was this century that the traditional headstone came to be used as standard. One fact that marks the Lowland Scottish Headstone as unique is that the Headstone took almost a century to penetrate into the highlands, where the older slab and table grave markers were still being used until shortly before the 19th century. The height of 18th-century Scottish Lowland Gravestones can be anywhere between 60 cm and 100 cm. Also unique to the Scottish Lowland gravestone are the materials. Sandstone is an easily carved but easily weathered rock but it was used as the standard gravestone material in the north of Britain. In the south, where marbles and granite were the preferred medium, we see an understandable hesitation on the part of the stonemason to overly decorate the hard stones of England.

18th-century Scottish gravestones are almost always oriented east to west. The part which contains the identification of the cadaver usually faces towards the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

. Since most 18th-century were left relatively unadorned, the rear side of stone was frequently left unmarked. This is the side that invariably faced away from the Holy Land, towards the west. However, in many lowland graveyards, the side usually left unmarked is covered with extravagant designs.

In the mid-18th century, tradesman, craftsmen and tenant farmers found themselves in a time of prosperity. A direct result of this was the increase in carefully inscribed gravestones for the common folk.

19th-century stones

The 19th century saw almost all memorial permutations of the past come back with gusto. Wall monuments, crypts, headstones, table and slab stones and even replica Hog Backs were all common designs in Victorian Scotland. The introduction of the Cast-Iron Grave Marker would simply add yet another embellishment to an already decorative art form.

External links

Sources

Understanding Scottish Graveyards by B. Willsher
Scottish Epitaphs by B. Willsher
History of the Royal Burgh of Irvine by John Strawhorn
A Historical Guide to Ayrshire by Dane Love
Stones: a guide to some remarkable eighteenth-century gravestones by Betty Willsher and Doreen Hunter. Edinburgh : Canongate, 1978.
East Lothian gravestones by Islay Donaldson. East Lothian District Council, 1991.
Midlothian gravestones by Islay Donaldson. Midlothian District Library Service, 1994.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.