We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A sailing vessel carved on a monument, marking a mariner.
Also known as: Sailing ship on a grave, Mariner's ship, Boat carving on a headstone
A ship under sail. In coastal burial grounds it marks a seafarer, and the rig is often accurate enough to identify the type of vessel — which makes these among the most informative occupational carvings when the mason knew his subject.
A sailing vessel carved on a monument, marking a mariner, shipmaster or someone whose living came from the sea.
Contexts: History
Concentrated in coastal and port burial grounds, and frequently rigged accurately enough for the vessel type to be identified — brig, schooner, full-rigged ship — which suggests the carver knew what was being depicted.
Coastal and port communities
Also used with a quite different sense as an emblem of the soul's voyage or of the Church, particularly where the vessel is stylised rather than accurately rigged. Accuracy of the rigging is the usual clue as to which is meant.
An accurately rigged ship suggests a mariner; a stylised one may be allegorical.
A sailing vessel shown from the side with a curved hull, one or more masts carrying square or fore-and-aft sails, and rigging lines between them.
Both are maritime motifs on monuments, and both carry an occupational and an allegorical reading.