Serbian old tombstone

This tombstone was photographed at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade.

To erect a monument to a deceased ancestor and thus mark his last residence is one of the most important obligations of posterity in our nation. An even greater responsibility is the raising of the wayfarer - the eternal house for the soul of the dead whose body cannot be found to be buried, for a soul without a monument to rest in is forever cursed in the pit of eternal oblivion. The stone camps of the deceased, which have become primarily rural and monastery cemeteries within the changing border of Serbian countries over time, are a meeting point for the dead and the living, a place of remembrance, mourning, the practice of often enigmatic rites, but also the point at which unbreakable bonds are created between generations within one nation. The connection between the living and the dead, between earth and sky.