Memorial Symbols

51 symbols to explore

Meaning & historical context

Browse memorial symbols

51 symbols.

Filter symbols
Obelisk Shadow Sign preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Obelisk Shadow Sign

An obelisk stands solid while its shadow stretches beyond it, turning a durable cemetery monument into a reflection on absence, memory, legacy, and the traces a life leaves behind.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryIdentityHistorically supported
Black Ribbon Device preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Black Ribbon Device

A simple black ribbon turns private loss outward, echoing the visible mourning dress and armbands through which grief and remembrance could once be publicly recognised.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryLoveHistorically supported
Tear Drop Emblem preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Tear Drop Emblem

Reduced to a single tear, grief becomes intimate rather than monumental: a small mark for sorrow, love, compassion, and the way remembrance can condense an entire relationship into one visible sign of absence.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathCompassionMemoryHistorically supported
Memory Bone Frame preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Memory Bone Frame

Bones form a boundary around an imagined memory, shifting human remains from a warning about death into a frame for what death cannot contain completely: name, relationship, identity, and remembrance.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryIdentityHistorically supported
Shrine Pilgrim Badge preview
Heraldry & Emblems£0.99

Shrine Pilgrim Badge

Small, affordable shrine badges allowed medieval pilgrims to carry a holy place home with them, serving as wearable signs of devotion, remembrance, and a journey completed.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithIdentityMemoryHistorically supported
Swallow Sign preview
Nautical & Maritime£0.99

Swallow Sign

A swallow in sailor tattoo tradition carries the pull of home across distance, making this sign especially suited to return, loyalty, hope, memory, and the promise of finding one's way back.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialHopeGuidanceLoveHistorically supported
Candle Skull Seal preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Candle Skull Seal

Bone and flame make the message immediate: the skull names mortality, while the candle turns a human lifespan into light that burns brightly, diminishes, and eventually goes out.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryFaithHistorically supported
Wilted Lily Device preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Wilted Lily Device

The lily is shown after its moment of fullness, making the bend of the stem and fading bloom a restrained image of mourning, impermanence, memory, and renewal.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryRenewalHistorically supported
Tomb Gate Emblem preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Tomb Gate Emblem

The entrance to a tomb becomes a boundary between presence and absence, giving this emblem a sober language for mortality, remembrance, transition, and the uncertainty beyond a final threshold.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathTransformationMemoryHistorically supported
Ash Flower Sign preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Ash Flower Sign

Flower and ash occupy opposite ends of the same image: one still holds form, the other has returned to residue, creating a quiet meditation on beauty, loss, memory, and renewal.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryRenewalHistorically supported
Broken Heart Blade preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Broken Heart Blade

Pierced hearts already carried love and pain together in historic sailor and military flash. Breaking the heart makes the fracture explicit, turning this modern variation into an emblem for attachment that has been damaged but remains important enough to remember.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveResilienceHistorically supported
Death Moth Dagger preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Death Moth Dagger

The death's-head hawkmoth carries a real skull-like marking that has inspired ominous stories for generations. Paired with a dagger in this modern flash design, it becomes a memento mori image where mortality is not the end of the story but the pressure that makes change, memory and resilience matter.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryTransformationHistorically supported
Heart and Blade preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Heart and Blade

Hearts and blades share a long history in sailor and military flash, where names and mottos often made the image personal. Without that inscription, this modern pairing leaves room for love, hurt, memory and the resolve to carry all three.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveMemoryHistorically supported
Mourning Blade preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Mourning Blade

A blade can mark danger or survival; placed in a memorial context, its hard edge becomes a way to give grief visible form. Mourning Blade is a modern emblem for memory carried forward, honouring what has been lost without pretending mourning follows one symbolic rule.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryDeathFaithHistorically supported
Rose Banner Blade preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Rose Banner Blade

Rose, blade and banner are all familiar parts of classic tattoo flash, but the words placed between them made each piece personal. This modern composition keeps that openness, pairing beauty with hardship and leaving space for the name, memory or promise that gives the emblem its real weight.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveMemoryHistorically supported
Rose Through Dagger preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Rose Through Dagger

A rose pierced by a dagger sets tenderness against danger in one of tattooing's most enduring visual contrasts. This modern flash composition can speak to love carried through pain, memory that survives loss, or beauty defended by strength.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveBalanceHistorically supported
Swallow Knife Mark preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Swallow Knife Mark

The swallow carries strong associations with sailors, journeys and return, while the knife belongs to the wider language of wartime flash. Combined here, they create a modern emblem for finding a way home through danger and uncertainty.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialGuidanceHopeLoveHistorically supported
Lantern Grave Mark preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Lantern Grave Mark

A lantern beside the grave changes darkness from emptiness into vigil, making this mark an image of remembrance, watchfulness, comfort, and keeping a light for someone absent.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialGuidanceMemoryFaithHistorically supported
Poppy Time Seal preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Poppy Time Seal

A remembrance poppy set against a measure of time links individual loss with the years that follow, asking how memory is carried after those who witnessed an event are gone.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryRenewalHistorically supported
Veil Candle Crest preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Veil Candle Crest

A veiled light makes grief visible without extinguishing hope: mourning surrounds the flame, but the flame remains, creating an image of remembrance held through darkness rather than defeated by it.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryFaithDeathHistorically supported
Funeral Bell Sign preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Funeral Bell Sign

The bell gives death a public voice: its imagined sound marks a farewell beyond the private circle of grief, turning remembrance into something heard, shared, and acknowledged by a community.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryFaithHistorically supported
Last Flame Seal preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Last Flame Seal

A final flame holds at the edge of darkness, capturing the fragile interval before extinction while leaving open another reading: that even a small surviving light can become memory, vigil, faith, or hope.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryHopeHistorically supported
Heart Tablet preview
Nautical & Maritime£0.99

Heart Tablet

Framed like an inscription meant to be kept, the heart becomes a place for what matters personally: love, loyalty, faith, memory, devotion, or the name and story that someone chooses to carry forward.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveMemoryHistorically supported
Rose Tablet preview
Nautical & Maritime£0.99

Rose Tablet

Placed within a tablet-like frame, the rose feels less like decoration and more like a dedication: a familiar tattoo and memorial flower for love, devotion, beauty, remembrance, hope, and the memories we choose to preserve.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveMemoryHistorically supported
Zapotec Funerary Urn Deity preview
Ancient Americas£0.99

Zapotec Funerary Urn Deity

This Monte Alban funerary effigy, once described simply as a deity urn, is now identified by museum scholarship as the named ancestor 7 N wearing divine impersonation regalia.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryDeathIdentityHistorically supported
Osiris Djed Frame preview
Occult & Esoteric£0.99

Osiris Djed Frame

A contemporary Osirian frame centred on the ancient Egyptian djed, a sign of permanence and stability that became closely associated with Osiris and funerary renewal.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialResilienceRenewalDeathHistorically supported
Rose and Ash Device preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Rose and Ash Device

The rose holds beauty, love, and memory in a recognisable form while ash shows what form eventually becomes, creating a deliberate contrast between what is cherished, what is lost, and what remains.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathLoveMemoryHistorically supported
Cypress preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Cypress

Cypress was an explicit nineteenth-century emblem of mourning, its long funerary history and association with graves making it one of floriography's clearest symbols of grief.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryHistorically supported
Pansy preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Pansy

In nineteenth-century flower dictionaries, the pansy was characteristically an emblem of thought, remembrance and affectionate reflection—an association echoed by its older name, heartsease.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryLoveHistorically supported
Valknut preview
Norse & Rune-Inspired£0.99

Valknut

Three interlocking triangles form an ancient Scandinavian motif whose exact meaning is unknown; modern interpretation often links it with Odin, death, warrior memory, and the afterlife, but none is securely attested.

4 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryIdentityHistorically supported
Jackal Standard Seal preview
Occult & Esoteric£0.99

Jackal Standard Seal

A contemporary seal based on the ancient Egyptian Wepwawet standard, the standing canid image of the ‘Opener of the Ways’ associated with procession, guidance and passage.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialGuidanceProtectionDeathHistorically supported
Canopic Vessel Mark preview
Occult & Esoteric£0.99

Canopic Vessel Mark

A contemporary emblem inspired by Egyptian canopic vessels, funerary containers used in embalming practice to preserve selected organs under divine protection.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryProtectionDeathHistorically supported
Pyramid Horizon Seal preview
Occult & Esoteric£0.99

Pyramid Horizon Seal

A contemporary seal inspired by Egyptian pyramidions and solar-horizon imagery, combining funerary architecture with themes of the sun’s passage, renewal and the afterlife.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialProtectionRenewalGuidanceHistorically supported
Sacred Heart Dagger preview
Flash Classics£0.99

Sacred Heart Dagger

The Sacred Heart carries centuries of Christian devotion centred on divine love and suffering; the dagger belongs to a later flash vocabulary. Their modern combination makes devotion feel costly and physical: love held through pain rather than protected from it.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithLoveResilienceHistorically supported
Tree of Jesse preview
Heraldry & Emblems£0.99

Tree of Jesse

Growing from the reclining figure of Jesse, the medieval Tree of Jesse transformed Christ's ancestry into a living tree of kings, prophets and sacred lineage.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFamilyFaithIdentityHistorically supported
Yew preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Yew

The yew was repeatedly identified with sorrow in nineteenth-century flower dictionaries, an association reinforced by its dark evergreen foliage and long presence in churchyards and burial grounds.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryResilienceHistorically supported
Red Poppy preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Red Poppy

In nineteenth-century floral language the red poppy symbolised consolation, while its now-familiar association with remembrance belongs primarily to the twentieth-century aftermath of the First World War.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryPeaceHistorically supported
Late Medieval Wounded Heart preview
Heraldry & Emblems£0.99

Late Medieval Wounded Heart

A pierced or bleeding heart belonged to the intense visual language of late-medieval Passion devotion, inviting contemplation of Christ's suffering, wounds, sacrifice and compassionate love.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithCompassionLoveHistorically supported
Broken Clock Mark preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Broken Clock Mark

A damaged clock turns the steady measurement of time into interruption, making the mark especially resonant with endings that arrive before plans, relationships, or ambitions feel complete.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryHumilityHistorically supported
Coffin Key Device preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Coffin Key Device

Coffin and key meet as a deliberately impossible mechanism: death is presented as a locked threshold, while the key evokes the human desire to understand, accept, or somehow open what remains unknowable.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathGuidanceWisdomHistorically supported
Hourglass Rose Mark preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Hourglass Rose Mark

An hourglass beside a rose sets measured time against living beauty, creating a reminder that what is cherished is made more precious by its impermanence.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryLoveHistorically supported
Forget-Me-Not preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Forget-Me-Not

A nineteenth-century floral emblem of remembrance, the forget-me-not was explicitly linked with true love and enduring memory in period flower dictionaries.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryLoveFaithHistorically supported
Rosemary preview
Botanical & Thornwork£0.99

Rosemary

Rosemary carried a well-established association with remembrance, reinforced in nineteenth-century flower dictionaries and a much older literary tradition of memory.

3 variants12 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialMemoryFaithHistorically supported
Phoenix Flame Crest preview
Mythic Beasts£0.99

Phoenix Flame Crest

The phoenix makes destruction part of a larger cycle: death is followed by renewed life. This flame crest turns that long-lived story into an emblem of renewal, hope, resilience and transformation after loss.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialRenewalStrengthTransformationHistorically supported
Dust Crown Mark preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Dust Crown Mark

A crown collapsing into dust reduces authority to the same material end as every other body, making the mark a direct statement about mortality, humility, equality, and the temporary nature of status.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathHumilityBalanceHistorically supported
Skull Window Emblem preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Skull Window Emblem

Framing the skull as a window makes mortality something to look through rather than simply look at, turning the emblem toward perspective, memory, humility, and reflection on how life is used.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryWisdomHistorically supported
Phoenix Ash Device preview
Mythic Beasts£0.99

Phoenix Ash Device

Ash places the emphasis after the fire rather than during it. Drawing on later phoenix traditions of death and renewed life, this device becomes an emblem of loss endured, what remains, and the possibility of beginning again.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialRenewalStrengthTransformationHistorically supported
Dead Branch Seal preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Dead Branch Seal

A bare branch records absence through what is missing—leaf, flower, fruit—making the seal a restrained image of mortality, endurance, seasonal change, and the possibility that barrenness is not always final.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathTransformationMemoryHistorically supported
Bone Circle Mark preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Bone Circle Mark

Bones arranged into a closed circle turn the body's remains into a stark image of equality and return: status falls away, memory persists, and every life meets the same physical limit.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathBalanceMemoryHistorically supported
Clock Hand Crest preview
Gothic & Memento Mori£0.99

Clock Hand Crest

Clock hands freeze a single point in a life that cannot be paused, making this crest a reminder that time is finite, its remaining measure unknown, and attention should not be endlessly deferred.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialDeathMemoryGuidanceHistorically supported
Pilgrim Ampulla preview
Heraldry & Emblems£0.99

Pilgrim Ampulla

Small lead-alloy ampullae let medieval pilgrims carry water, oil or other shrine-associated substances home, turning a sacred journey into something tangible that could be kept and remembered.

3 variants9 filesPDFPNGSVG
CommercialFaithMemoryHealingHistorically supported

About memorial symbols

Memorial symbols and their researched historical, cultural, and practical relationships.

Sanctum Hex Journal

Read beyond the catalogue.

Editorial research connected to memorial and its historical settings.

Curated sets

Collections with related symbols.

Collection overlap is shown against the symbols on this meaning page.

22 matching symbols

Memento Mori Mortality Symbols Collection

Memento Mori Mortality Symbols gathers 25 symbols shaped around hourglasses, candles, skull-adjacent marks, decay and renewal motifs, time symbols, and mortality emblems, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

8 matching symbols

Traditional Nautical Tattoo Collection

Traditional Nautical Tattoo gathers 25 symbols shaped around traditional flash language, protection motifs, bold line symbolism, and heirloom Americana composition, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

6 matching symbols

Botanical Silhouettes — Flowers, Leaves & Plants in Simplified Nineteenth-Century Style

Botanical Silhouettes brings together 25 flowers, leaves and plants rendered as bold, simplified botanical emblems. Inspired by nineteenth-century botanical illustration and decorative arts, the collection focuses on recognisable plant forms translated into clean silhouettes suitable for engraving, cutting and print. Many of these plants also appear in historical traditions of botanical symbolism. Where a historical symbolic association is documented, individual entries should distinguish period evidence from later or modern interpretations.

4 matching symbols

Egyptian Symbols Collection

Egyptian Symbols gathers 25 symbols shaped around temple relief, royal regalia, Nile symbolism, and the measured sacred language of Egyptian signwork, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

4 matching symbols

Medieval Pilgrim Protective Symbols (1100-1600) Collection

Medieval Pilgrim Protective Symbols (1100-1600) gathers 25 symbols shaped around pilgrim badges, journey signs, devotional monograms, protective emblems, shrine souvenirs, manuscript motifs, and symbols of faith, endurance, healing, identity, and safe return, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

3 matching symbols

Nautical & Maritime Symbols Collection

Nautical & Maritime Symbols gathers 25 symbols shaped around ropework, anchors, beacons, ships, swallows, hearts, stars, and the symbolic shorthand of maritime life, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

2 matching symbols

Symbolic Forms Mythological Creature Collection

Symbolic Forms Mythological Creature gathers 25 symbols shaped around mythic beasts and legendary creature symbols shaped as compact, cut-safe emblem forms, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

1 matching symbol

Ancient Americas Documented Signs Motifs Collection

Ancient Americas Documented Signs Motifs gathers 25 symbols shaped around documented glyphs, calendrical signs, manuscript motifs, archaeological reliefs, textiles, metalwork, and ceremonial objects from named ancient American cultures, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.

1 matching symbol

Norse Symbols & Runes

A researched set spanning early Germanic Elder Futhark runes, Viking-age Norse motifs, medieval mythology, and later Icelandic magical staves. Each symbol distinguishes documented historical evidence from modern meanings such as guidance, protection, strength, memory, resilience, and renewal.