The angel of death

Scottish graveyards, with their ancient stones richly decorated with symbols of our mortality, are just the place to visit on a moonlit night. This stone, in the tiny, remote, and rarely-visited graveyard of Leochel, is carved with an uncommon, but particularly potent, symbol of our inevitable fate, the Angel of Death.

The Angel of Death is usually depicted as a putto, a representation of a child, usually a boy, naked or as in this case, in swaddling clothes. The stone dates from the late 1700s and the putto is sporting a periwig in the fashion of the time. The Angel is standing on a skull and carrying an hour-glass and a scythe to remind the observer that time is fast running out and that life may be cut short at any time.

Have a nice day, carpe diem!