The wheat-sheath

A quick trip to Aberdeen transporting Mrs T to her hairdressers. Luckily Nellfield cemetery is situated just across the road and so I was able to pass the time perusing the old gravestones. Older Scottish gravestones are often decorated with symbols reminding us of our mortality and possible immortality or representing the trade or profession of the deceased.

This mural gravestone is adorned with a sheath of wheat and you could be forgiven for thinking it marks the grave of a farmer, grain merchant or maltster. In fact it celebrates a long life lived in abundance, or perhaps the eternal cycle of the renewal of life.