Join us on Friday March 9 at 12:00 noon for this free presentation.  Penny Cliff, Education Specialist, Georgia Archives, will speak about the language carved into American, British and European cemeteries primarily during the Victorian period.  Ornate carvings in nineteenth and early twentieth century headstones and monuments embraced a language easily recognized at the time, yet seems today to be purely decorative.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  This carved language conveys heartfelt and spiritual meanings while telling stories of lost loved-ones.  Coping with the realities of a difficult life by embracing the hopefulness of what lay beyond death created this language almost lost to time.
 
What does a rose bud or an arch convey? Why are there so many obelisks? How did Napoleon Bonaparte inspire this language? If you are a genealogist visiting ancestors' graves and want to know more about their lives, it may be in front of you, written in stone. For anyone who has ever enjoyed walking through cemeteries and reading these ornate headstones, this presentation is for you.  
 
As the Georgia Archives is celebrating our centennial, at each Lunch and Learn this year, there will be a drawing for a door prize.
 
The program requires no registration and is free and open to the public. Lunch and Learn programs begin at 12:00 noon and last about an hour. Please feel free to bring your lunch.
 
Also by commemorating our centennial, we will give free monthly tours: "Georgia Archives, 100 years: Where We Are Now” on the second Saturday of the month through 2018. Our next tour is on Saturday, March 10; the tour will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. No pre-registration is required. Please wear comfortable shoes.