Strathmatire Churchyard. Headstone, Bele, 1760. Digital image of AN 5347/5.

Description Strathmatire Churchyard. Headstone, Bele, 1760. Digital image of AN 5347/5.

Collection Papers of Betty Willsher, historian, St Andrews, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 799404

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of AN 5347/5

Scope and Content Gravestone of Alex Bell, Strathmartine Old Parish Church and Burial Ground, Strathmartine, Angus This shows the top of the gravestone with its depiction of two Angels of the Resurrection raising a skeleton on the Day of Judgement. Above the skull of the skeleton is a Crown of Righteousness, the reward which awaits the godly in Heaven. The skeleton clutches a scythe and dart, the weapons of Death personified. Scenes depicting believers rising from the dead on the Day of Judgement are common on many Scottish gravestones. The imagery is derived from the following text from I Corinthians 15: 51-2: 'Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed'. This gravestone commemorates Alex Bell, who died in 1759. It is inscribed: 'Here lys Alex Bell who lived/in the Kirkton of Strathmartin/who died 16 July 1759/aged 78/I lived almost eighty years/Within this vale of tears/At last cold death on me laid hands/Whom every mortal fears/And hath my body here enclosed/Within this grave of earth/When Christ's last trumpet gives the call/I shall come forth in mirth'. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/799404

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap