“Just like the Tattoo Dictionary I read earlier this year, this book was a big letdown. For the same reason!
I picked this up to hear about Cemetery symbolism. Which I thought was a reasonable thing to do because, you know, the title. Mostly because of the title.
What I didn’t need was an explanation of symbols as they exist outside the cemetery.
Do I need an exhaustive history of the cross? No. A history of angels? No. I want to know what this shit means in a graveyard, damn it! And if it means the exact same thing in a graveyard that it does in not a graveyard, feel free to skip it or just say “Cross: [see the rest of the world].”
Also, the layout was bad. This dude is talking about something, but I don’t know which picture, if any, goes along with what he’s talking about. This was especially bad in the section about architecture, which I can sum up for you like this: Cemetery architecture is reflective of the architectural trends of the area during the time of the person’s death. The end. It’s cool that a cemetery is a place where all these different architectural styles come together, but that’s about it.
There were a few other cool things. They are as follows:
1. Torpedo Coffins. Look these up. They were designed to fucking blow someone the fuck apart if they messed with your corpse after it was buried. That’s awesome.
2. There was some really weird stuff about animals. Old beliefs. For example, that bears are born these weird, unformed mounds of flesh, and the mother bear has to mold them into bear shape. How fucked up is that?!
3. “Sarcophagus” translates to “flesh eater.” Lots of early Sarcophagi were made of limestone, so they consumed the flesh of the folks stuffed inside of them.
Now, I know that the above three things sound awesome, but take my word for it, that’s about it. That’s by far the best stuff, and it’s the majority of the best stuff. “