Death is an inevitable part of life that humans have grappled with understanding and representing since the beginning of civilization. Across different cultures and belief systems, people have developed symbols and imagery to convey the mysteries, emotions, and concepts surrounding death and the afterlife. These symbols serve important psychological purposes, allowing people to process grief, mortality, loss, and transition. Many symbols of death have persisted through the ages, resonating across time and taking on layers of new meaning.
The Color Black
The color black is widely associated with death and mourning in many cultures. Black clothing is traditionally worn at funerals and memorial services in Western societies. This tradition dates back to the ancient Romans, who wore dark togas called pullas to funeral processions. The contrast of the darkness with living human skin and white flowers and candles helps convey the visual solemnity of the occasion. In many Eastern cultures as well, black clothing is worn by the family of the deceased for a period after the death.
Black’s association with death likely draws from the extinguished flame and resulting darkness that follows life. As the opposite of white, it evokes gloom, loss, emptiness, and the transition from light into obscurity. In many ways, black embodies the unknowns of what lies beyond death. At the same time, black adds dignity to rituals and ceremonies remembering the dead.
Skulls and Skeletons
Iconic symbols of death in Western cultures are skulls and skeletons. Their association originates from their physical manifestation in the decomposition of the body after death. A skull staring out with empty eye sockets instantly conjures the end of the living, breathing individual. Skeletons clearly represent the framework of a body after flesh and organs have withered away.
Imagery of skulls and skeletons serves as a stark reminder of human mortality. Its influence can be seen in medieval art and architecture, old tombstones, Day of the Dead celebrations, Gothic revivalist jewelry from the Victorian age, and death metal subcultures. Many also associate skulls with danger, poison, or evil, embodied in the skulls and crossbones on pirate flags. Skeletons and skulls remind the living to be aware of death’s presence in the background of life.
The Grim Reaper
The personified figure of Death known as the “Grim Reaper” shrouded in black robes with a scythe is a recognizable symbol of the inevitability of death. The popular image emerged from medieval art and folklore, with the scythe originally being an agricultural tool associated with harvesting. Just as the tool cuts down crops at the end of the growing season, the skeleton figure wielding the scythe cuts down human life when time has come to an end.
While the grim reaper primarily represents death itself, the gendering of the figure as male communicates how death reaps or harvests human life with agency. Portraying Death as a sentient figure also explores death’s prominence in the human experience. While the grim reaper elicits fear, dread, and unease in many, it also poignantly reminds people of their mortality and the limits of earthly existence.
The Coffin
Coffins are intricately linked to death in the Western cultural imagination, as they hold the deceased’s body. Traditionally made of wood, these rectangular containers both protect the body and provide a vessel for burial rituals. Coffins clearly demarcate the transition from life to death, solemnly containing the physical body as it makes its final journey to the grave.
Interestingly, the earliest coffins were often shaped like the objects the deceased used in life, like boats, granaries, or homes. The more abstract, rectangular design predominates today as a universal symbol. Elaborate coffin design indicates the social status and achievements of the dead. Plain, unadorned coffins convey life stripped to its essence, with death as the great equalizer.
Gravestones and Tombs
Gravestones and tombs stand as memorials commemorating the dead, marking the site of burial. Since ancient times, humans have created grave markers using materials like wood, stone, and metal. Simple gravestones state the name and lifespan of the deceased. More elaborate tomb structures, mausoleums, and crypts contain spaces to house the dead, constructed both above and below ground.
These burial monuments often directly reference death through inscriptions, symbolic images of heaven, and epitaphs bidding farewell to the living world. Flowers and offerings left at gravesites further connect to death’s presence. Gravestones poignantly represent how the deceased life has passed but is not forgotten. Their physical presence in the landscape signifies the impermanence of life and constant closeness of death’s domain.
The Willow Tree
The weeping willow is a tree closely associated with grief, mourning, and death. With its long, trailing branches that appear to droop towards the ground, the tree evokes deep sorrow and lamentation. Willows thrive near water, linking them symbolically to the flow of human life as well.
In visual art, mourners are often depicted grieving beneath willow branches. Willows are common in Old World cemetery landscaping, as they suit the atmosphere of melancholy and loss. Their shade creates an area protected from the harshness of life where the living can reflect on those who have passed. Willow branches are sometimes laid on graves or included in funeral displays as part of their symbolism.
Doves
White doves represent the spiritual ascent of the soul towards heaven in many cultures and religious traditions. Their release at funerals symbolizes the passage of the spirit to the afterlife. The dove’s white color evokes purity and innocence, while its flight heavenward suggests divine hope and transcendence.
Doves originating from European pagan religions that associated the birds with goddesses transitioned into Judeo-Christian symbolism linking the dove to the immortal soul. Releasing doves at memorials and funerals offers a touching tribute to the deceased, while allowing mourners to visually connect to the promise of life after death.
Butterflies
Butterflies frequently hold symbolic meaning related to life, death, and resurrection across cultures. Their lifecycle – emerging from cocoons, transforming from caterpillars, and taking first flight – mirrors the human transition from life to death to beyond. Butterflies easily lend themselves as representations of the soul leaving the body.
In Mexican culture, monarchs symbolize the returning souls of ancestors on the Day of the Dead. In ancient Greek myths, the goddess of the soul, Psyche, is depicted with butterfly wings. Releasing butterflies at funerals has become popular for visualizing the departure of the spirit. Seeing a butterfly after a loved one’s death is often interpreted as reassurance that the spirit lives on.
The Ouroboros
The Ouroboros, depicted as a snake consuming its own tail in the round, symbolizes the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. The image dates back to ancient Egyptian iconography and features in alchemical drawings through the Middle Ages. The serpent eating itself conveys existence folding back on itself and being perpetually reborn.
While the Ouroboros represents the cycle of life in general, it takes on special meaning in exploring the human life cycle ending in death, only to restart with the next generation. The Ouroboros imparts meaning on individual mortality as part of an ongoing process of regeneration playing out at the cosmic scale. Life ends, but allows for new beginnings.
Hourglasses
Hourglasses represent the passage of time through flowing sand, with particular connotations of life’s impermanence and death’s approach. Placing hourglasses in tombs and gravesites in the 17th century embodied the visual memento mori message – “remember you must die.” The hourglass marks time running out, each grain bringing the unavoidable death closer.
The transient nature of existence has long been symbolized in hourglasses, with some styles allowing sand to run continuously in a loop. While evoking the brevity of a single lifespan, hourglasses also reference continuity and the ongoing cycle between life and death. Hourglasses remind that the time anyone has is limited, imparting perspective on making the most of the present.
Candle Flame
The flickering light of a candle flame speaks to the fragility and impermanence of life. Fire provides light and energy, allowing life to flourish. Yet its delicate nature means it may be extinguished at any time, plunging into darkness. Watching a candle’s slow burn before blowing out the light completely connects to observing a person through life until their death.
Candles are often lit at vigils or in remembrance, honoring the deceased by symbolizing their living spirit. When the flame extinguishes, it represents the individual’s passage into death. The thin tendril of smoke whisping upward is seen to carry one’s prayers, thoughts, and essence skyward. The brevity yet beauty of a candle flame reflects on the radiance each life brings, however transient.
Conclusion
Symbols provide powerful means for human cultures to engage with the mysteries of life, death, and existence. While the universal experience of death remains constant, its diverse representations convey how people process and infuse this inevitability with meaning. These symbols offer emotional release, opportunities for remembrance, and ways to comprehend mortality’s place in human life’s journey. The shared language of death’s symbols connects our finite lives to the vaster cycles of loss and renewal underlying all nature.