The Gravekeeper’s Paradox

In a cemetery, decay is both an enemy and an ally. In this piece from the Nautilus archives, David Shultz tours Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with David Gallagher, its “chief of conservation.” Shultz learns about the longevity of different types of of stone, from marble to granite, and explores what people really want when they consider the markers for their eternal resting places. “Our tombstones suggest that we are not just comfortable with paradox—we seek it out,” Shultz writes. “Many of us want a permanent marker, but also one that shows its age.”

A pile of rubble clearly does little to aid in the remembrance of a body that walked and talked and dreamed and thought. But a marker that remains too pristine loses its authority. An inscribed date might reveal when a monument was erected, but it’s the lichens, dirt, chips, and scratches that make that date convincing. We want time to be gentle, but not to stop. Leach and Gallagher both note the growing popularity of granite, spurred by the quest for maximum permanency. But at the same time many people also want to be buried in old, historic plots like Mount Auburn—as if they want their cemetery to brag of its age, but their own markers to remain immortal.