Is there a standard for headstone orientation?

[Black]

I was passing a cemetery today and got to wondering how the headstones could be allowed to be skewed all different ways.
I imagine they are oriented such so that if you stand directly in front of them they appear vertically level? Or are they level initially despite the slope they're on, and I'm just seeing a lot of settling?
I don't need the answer for a few hours, so take your time.

[mattkime]

sounds like they need a director.

convince them of your vision.

[NewtonMP2100]

. . .don't think a headstone's orientation is really anyones business. . .straight or gay or bi...does it matter. . .?

[Black]

NewtonMP2100 wrote:
. . .don't think a headstone's orientation is really anyones business. . .straight or gay or bi...does it matter. . .?

People probably tell you this all the time, but you have a 3-track mind, Newt.

[davester]

I went to visit my aunt and uncle's grave at a very old Norman (previously Saxon) church and graveyard in England two weeks ago. I don't think they got the message about headstone orientation...

[Thrift Store Scott]

davester wrote:
I went to visit my aunt and uncle's grave at a very old Norman (previously Saxon) church and graveyard in England two weeks ago. I don't think they got the message about headstone orientation...

I'd say that's more a case of settling, because even though they're all leaning in different ways they appear to have all been originally set in the ground facing the same direction.

At my family cemetery all the graves face the same direction (East), which is apparently a tradition begun before the Civil War. However, I've been to other equally old cemeteries where the graves did not face any one specific direction.

[WHiiP]

I prefer looking at the sunset . . . :oldfogey:

[AAA]

I always thought tombstones faced East (christians) for the coming of Jesus?

his is commonly found throughout the world. People were buried with their feet pointing toward the east and their heads towards the west indicating that they were ready to rise up and face the “new day” when “the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised” or when Christ would appear and they would be reborn.

[Mr Downtown]

. . . thus the term orientation.

[OWC Jamie]

In Chicago it may be due to all the constant coffin shuffling ...


Settling.


Some Public Works Dept. funds are used up righting the markers knocked over by vandals leaving little left to correct settling.
Private grounds probably, too.