When did the practice of putting epitaphs on gravestones originate?

Zbeckabee

For hundreds if not thousands of years, the epitaph has been a significant part of the death ritual. Before the development of written language and adequate tools for carving, the grave was marked with such items as sticks and rocks. In his Death and Dying in Central Appalachia (1994), the scholar James K. Crissman notes that in the first one hundred years of Central Appalachian society, marking a grave using any form of language involved taking a sharp-pointed rock and carving the initials of the deceased on another rock. Most likely, this was the way the first human societies expressed themselves when they developed the ability to use language symbols. Archaeological evidence and written and pictorial records show that memorials were an important part of ancient societies such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The Greeks used eight forms of grave markers including round columns, rectangular slabs, stelae (carved or inscribed stones), shrine-shaped stones, huge rectangular stone blocks, marble vases, square or round receptacles for cremains, and sarcophagi (stone coffins) (Bardis 1981). Many of these early societies employed sepulchral iconography or the use of beautiful, elaborate, and detailed scenes or panoramas portraying the life of the decedent, as well as written inscriptions such as "farewell" (Crissman 1994). The epitaph, or inscription at a grave or memorial in memory of someone deceased, exists for a variety of reasons and in a multiplicity of forms. While the use of epitaphs predates the modern era, the French thanatologist Philippe Ariès states that "the practice of marking the exact site of a grave by means of an inscription did not become widespread until the end of the eighteenth century" (Ariès 1982, p.78). http://www.deathreference.com/En-Gh/Epitaphs.html Oct 10 10, 11:18 AM