
Have you ever wandered through a cemetery, spotted a beautiful headstone and pondered about the life that may have inspired it? If you have, you are not alone. Cemeteries inspire a natural curiosity in all of us. They reflect a lot about the people whose remains are interred within them, as well as their customs and beliefs about the afterlife.
1. The Haunting Grave of Fernand Abelot
A striking bronze gravestone in the world-famous Père Lachaise cemetery is that of actor and musician Fernand Arbelot, who died in 1942. Little is known about Arbelot, but it is thought that the face he is holding is that of his wife, which he wished to gaze upon for all eternity.
The epitaph on his grave reflects the love he and his wife shared: “They were amazed at the beautiful journey which led them to the end of life.”
2. The Grave of the Clasped Hands
These are the graves of husband and wife Colonel van Gorcum and Lady van Aefferden, who are still holding hands more than 150 years after their death.
Their marriage in 1842 was a great scandal – Lady van Aefferden was an aristocratic Catholic, while the Colonel was a Protestant with no noble connections. When Colonel van Gorcum died in 1880, he was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Roermond.
Knowing that she would be buried in the Catholic cemetery, his wife made it clear that she did not want to be buried in her family’s burial plot. Instead she chose a burial site right by the wall dividing the two cemeteries, as close to her husband’s grave as possible. Atop their headstones, two hands meet across the wall, proving that love really doesn’t end with death.
3. Tragedy and Romance in Paris
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is world-renowned for its beautiful mausoleums and gravestones, but few are as striking as that of Georges Rodenbach, a 19th Century Belgian writer. From his tomb, a bronze statue of Rodenbach can be seen emerging from the grave, clasping a single rose in his hand.
Dramatic and romantic, Rodenbach’s tomb reflects his writing. His best-known work, a symbolic novel called Bruges-la-Morte, is the heartbreaking story of a widower living in Bruges, struggling to cope with grief in the wake of his wife’s death.
4. The Grave That Keeps Growing
This tomb in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, has grown to extraordinary lengths over the centuries. It’s said to be the final resting place of Daniel, the Old Testament prophet, and local legend has it that his body continued to grow after death, resulting in a tomb that is now 18 meters long.
The story goes that Timur, a Turco-Mongol leader who conquered parts of Persia and Central Asia, interred Daniel’s remains at Samarkand for good luck. It’s believed that the truth behind the growing grave is that Timur became wary of robbers, and extended the tomb to make it harder for them to plunder the precious remains.
Although several other places, mainly in Iraq and Iran, also claim to be home to the grave of Daniel, Samarkand’s remarkable ever-growing tomb is unique.
5. A Burial Facing the Open Sky
Designed by revolutionary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Blue Sky Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, is in tribute to his close friend and supporter, Darwin D. Martin. Wright and Martin had discussed the unique mausoleum in detail between 1925 and 1928, but sadly it was not built in either of their lifetimes.
In 2004, architect Anthony Puttnam, who was once apprentice to Wright, worked with Forest Lawn Cemetery to bring the two friends’ vision into reality. The design is based on detailed sketches and plans by Wright, but is now a memorial rather than grave. The memorial’s inscription was taken from a note written by him to Martin as an epitaph: “A burial facing the open sky… The whole could not fail of noble effect…”
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