Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
View of table tomb with skull, bone, Sexton's tools and scroll inscribed 'Memento Mori', St Mary's Church burial ground, Banff.
SC 801758
Description View of table tomb with skull, bone, Sexton's tools and scroll inscribed 'Memento Mori', St Mary's Church burial ground, Banff.
Date 8/1965
Collection Records of the Scottish National Buildings Record, Edinburgh, Scotland
Catalogue Number SC 801758
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of BN 182
Scope and Content Written on verso of the mounted print: 'Shire: Banffshire. Place: Banff. Building: St Mary's Church, Carmelite Street. Photographer: G.N. Date: August 1965'. End of a table tomb with emblems of death, St Mary's Church and Burial-Ground, Church Street, Banff, Aberdeenshire This shows the end of the table tomb, with its heavy stone lid resting on broad corner pilasters. The panel is carved to resemble a draped piece of fabric from which a set of sexton's (gravedigger's) tools hang on a cord (left) and a scroll inscribed: 'MEMENTO MORI' (remember you must die) drapes (right). In the centre of the cloth are a skull and bone, emblems of death. The draped cloth could represent the 'mort-cloth' hired out by churches to drape over coffins at funerals, or may be just a decorative device. Death or mortality emblems on Scottish gravestones include coffins, 'deid bells', bones, skulls, skeletons, sexton's (gravedigger's) tools, hourglasses and the scythe and dart (weapons of Death). When strung together on ribbons they may also represent trophies of Death, held by the Cord of Life. They were intended to remind the viewer of the power of death, and encourage the living to lead virtuous lives in order to ascend to Heaven after death. This table tomb dates from the mid-18th century, and stands amongst many other such memorials in a crowded burial-ground which dates from the medieval period. Most of the monuments date from between the 16th century and the 19th century. No details of the inscription are available. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
External Reference MW/BR/BAN/156
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/801758
File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap
Attribution: © Crown Copyright: HES (Scottish National Buildings Record)
Licence Type: Full
You may: copy, display, store and make derivative works [eg documents] solely for licensed personal use at home or solely for licensed educational institution use by staff and students on a secure intranet.
Under these conditions: Display Attribution, No Commercial Use or Sale, No Public Distribution [eg by hand, email, web]
