In the 18th century, memento mori imagery on headstones served as a stark reminder of life’s brevity and the certainty of death. Death’s head or angel engravings, often paired with a winged hourglass or sand timer, symbolized time’s swift passage and the soul’s transition from the earthly world to the eternal. These motifs were not meant to be macabre, but instructive: urging the living to reflect on mortality, moral conduct, and spiritual preparedness, reinforcing the Puritan and early Christian belief that time, once spent, could never be reclaimed.
