Friday, October 26, 2007

Very Grave Grave

Detail from a gravestone in the Sint Jans-kathedraal in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch (luckily, normally referred to as "den Bosch").



The grave is dated 14 October 1380 and as you can see, it has a large vertical crack in it. Still, it's not in bad shape for being over 600 years old.



I like the bird (heron? stork? eagle?) in the coat of arms.



St Jans is a beautiful church; like many such churches, during gothic times it was transformed. This stone dates from the period when the major gothic construction began (1340).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The stork with the snake and the tree have some real importance in the coat of arms. I also like the skull and cross bones. And that crack. We could speculate that it was cracked by the person inside wanting out now. I have never seen a tombstone this old. Here, were I live, we do have some from the very early 1800s and one or two from late 1700s but nothing older with a stone.

NorthBayPhoto said...

Impressive coat of arms. The skull & cross bones throws one for a bit of a loop though.

Dick said...

600 years is a long time, I like this stone, nice shot

Jo's-D-Eyes said...

And? Did you like 'sHartogenbosch? You see (like us all photography lovers) such wonderfull detaills, its great that you saw this little piece of wood-art....

Neva said...

600 years old???wow...looks to be in good shape is right!