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Farming implements carved on a monument, marking agricultural work.
Also known as: Farming tools on a grave, Agricultural implements, Sickle on a headstone
A plough, a sickle, a scythe or a sheaf. In rural burial grounds these usually mark farming, though the sickle and scythe carry a second and much older reading as emblems of death — which is why they need reading in context.
Ploughs, sickles, scythes, flails and sheaves carved on monuments in rural burial grounds, generally marking a farmer or agricultural labourer.
Contexts: History
The sickle and scythe are the awkward cases: both are farming tools and both are long-established emblems of death and the harvest of life, so the same object supports an occupational and an allegorical reading.
Where a scythe appears with an hourglass or a skull the allegorical reading is far more likely; where it appears with a plough and a sheaf, the occupational one is.
A plough carries no such ambiguity and is straightforwardly occupational, which makes it the more useful indicator where both appear.
A curved sickle blade on a short handle, or a plough with a curved mouldboard and handles, sometimes shown with a bound sheaf of corn.
Wheat appears as both an occupational marker in farming districts and an allegory of a life harvested.