"Remember, You Must Die"

Historic Jamestowne in Virginia is truly a national treasure. Not only is it one of the earliest sites of European colonization in the U.S., but the robust and professional archaeological work done there for decades continues to harvest thousands of amazing artifacts, each of which help to tell the stories of the European, indigenous, and enslaved peoples who cohabited the remote piece of wilderness. I love visiting the historicjamestowne.org website and getting their monthly archaeological updates, and I strongly recommend that you do so as well, if you've still got a pulse and love discovering treasures from America's distant past. The great folks at Historic Jamestowne have kindly given me permission to show you and tell you about one of their treasures here: a memento mori seal matrix.

First, I've got to tell you that, after many years of doing metal detecting and bottle digging, I have never found something quite as awesome as this shining up at me from the dark dirt below! It's a solid piece of silver with an intricate engraving of a human skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and an arrow or "death's dart" in the other. The animated bones seem to be standing behind a flower plant, perhaps symbolic of life and clearly a counterpoint to the symbol of death looming behind it.

photo courtesy of ©Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia) ; see historicjamestowne.org

Skeletons have long been used as an obvious symbol of death - the last part of deceased humans and other animals to decay - but unless the symbolism wasn't bold and clear enough, the hourglass was added as a reminder of how time and life are fleeting, and the arrow called to mind it's mortal purpose: to end life.

In the 21st century, we as a species tend to focus on the hedonistic pleasures of life, but in the 17th century, Christians were more focused on their mortality and the subsequent importance of the eternal hereafter. Even in 1721, the Lynn gravestone of Dr. John Henry Burchsted was reminding its readers,

Reader PHYSICIANS Dy as others do,

Prepare, for thou to this art hastening too.

The fabulous Jamestown find is a seal that would be pushed into hot wax and then onto letters and documents to seal them. The cooled wax seal would have a three-dimensional representation of this image reminding the viewer of the shortness of life. These symbols of death were called "Memento Mori," which is Latin for "Remember Death" but more poetically, "Remember, You Must Die". Another memento mori seal matrix found at Jamestown, mounted on a gold finger ring, and it depicts just the skull with the motto, "MEMENTO MORI" in the circle around it. These are two of TEN seal matrices found on the site so far! Wow. Each has its own design to identify the owner of the seal.

If the skeleton, hourglass, and arrow sound familiar to armchair historians and Johnny Depp fans, it's because they were also used in pirate flags. The November 1723 edition of The Historic and Political MERCURY (Vol.35, No.11) belatedly reported big news from Newport, Rhode Island:

This Day 26 of the Pyrates taken by his Majesty's Ship the Greyhound, Capt. Solgard, were executed here. Some of them deliver'd what they had to say in Writing, and most of them said something at the Place of Execution, advising all People, young ones especially, to take Warning by their unhappy Fate, and to avoid the Crimes that brought them to it. Their Black-Flag, under which they had committed abundance of Pyracies, and Murders, was affix'd to one Corner of the Gallows: It had in it the Portraiture of Death, with an Hour-Glass in one Hand, and a Dart in the other striking into a Heart, and Three Drops of Blood delineated as falling from it: This Flag they call'd Old Roger, and used to say, They would live and die under it.

photo courtesy of The Åland Maritime Museum

One of only two authentic pirate flags still existing in the world.

You probably noticed that the letters "LF" appear backwards above the hourglass on the Jamestown silver seal matrix; this is so that they would appear correctly when the hot wax seal cooled on the paper upon which it had been pressed.

By the way, if anyone finds a silver or gold memento mori skeleton ring or seal matrix in the ground with the letters "AVR," it's mine - I lost it. Yeah, sure.