Death in Nova Scotia

As some of you will know, I have an interest in Scottish graveyards, especially the symbols carved on 18th and 19th century gravestones. Today we are staying in the Nova Scotian  town of Wolfville and I was delighted to find the old burial ground with many stones dating to the early 1700s. Many of them had symbols of mortality and immortality that are  similar to those to be found in Scotland. 

This stone, for example, has a crowned and winged resurrection soul  leaving the body after the day of judgement; it signifies potential eternal immortality. 

The  other symbols, the crossed bones, the hour glass and the hand holding a sickle, are warnings to the living that we must all die, that time is fast running out, and that we may be cut down at any time, without warning. Carpe diem!