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Tools, vessels and vehicles carved on gravestones and memorials. The family is held together by a single caution that every record repeats: an object on a stone is not proof of the occupation it suggests. A hammer may mark a smith, or a mason, or a fraternal membership, or nothing at all beyond the carver's pattern book. Some motifs are much stronger evidence than others — a miner's safety lamp has no domestic use and a locomotive is hard to misread — and the records say which are which rather than treating the whole vocabulary as equally reliable. The caduceus record is here because the commonest occupational misidentification in the whole subject is a doctor's memorial carrying the wrong snake.
Tools and objects carved on graves, and why they are weaker evidence of a trade than they look.
Two tools carved crossed in saltire, marking a trade.
An anvil with a hammer, marking a smith.
A pickaxe crossed with a shovel, marking a miner.
A gauze-covered oil lamp, marking a miner and used to detect gas.
A wooden mallet with a stone chisel, marking a mason.
A sailing vessel carved on a monument, marking a mariner.
A steam engine carved on a monument, marking a railway worker.
Farming implements carved on a monument, marking agricultural work.
A pair of shears carved on a monument, marking a cloth trade or the cutting of life.
A pharmacist's mortar and pestle carved on a monument.
A firefighter's helmet carved on a monument, often with crossed axes or a ladder.
An open book with a pen, marking a scholar, clerk or writer.
A lyre or harp carved on a monument, marking a musician.
The Rod of Asclepius and the caduceus on memorials, and which of them actually means medicine.
A bale of wool or a merchant's mark carved on a monument.