Creepy Cemetery Statues

Early monuments and grave stones in Europe and in old New England were crude and were carved with frightening motifs like winged skulls, skeletons and angels of death. The idea was to frighten the living with the very idea of death. In this way, they were apt to live a more righteous life after seeing the images of decay and horror on the markers of the dead. It would not be until the latter part of the 1800’s that scenes of eternal peace would replace those of damnation.

Eventually, grave markers, monuments and tombs became a craft, as well as an art form. The peak for the new funeral industry and for graveyard art and mausoleums came in the last part of the 1800’s, the Victorian era. During these years, American cemeteries were packed with massive and beautiful statues and tombs.