Although this is a bit different from what I usually post, I came upon this picture on the internet and just had to share. I have read and watched a lot on the subject of the undead and vampires, and even read about this cage over graves before. However, I have never actually seen a picture of one before and found it unique. So, I know what your asking, “so what does this have to do with this site and why is it posted?” Well, it has to do with the Victorian era and all of their superstitions and what we now know of as irrational fears.

The caged grave as seen above was used to prevent one of two things. 1: If you were to come back alive and become a walking undead then you wouldn’t be able to remove yourself from this cage and you could be dealt with. 2: If you were a vampire the same situation would apply to you.

I find death during the Victorian era to be fascinating, they seemed to have a love affair with death at least from an onlooker some 100 years in the future. Did you know that many peoples only photograph was taken AFTER they died. Yes, if you came from a poor family and you died, your family could scrape enough money together to have a memorial photo of you by yourself or your body could be “staged” to be in a family photo. This included babies and older folks and these photos were kept in a memorial album.

A memorial album was basically a scrapbook of photos of the deceased. You see, you would have photos of your loved ones, but you would also have memorial cards sent to you with the photos of the deceased person on the front announcing their death. Since everything delivered was delivered very slowly back then from one area of the country to another it might be weeks before you found out someone related to you died. This would announce their death but would give you a keepsake of their death and it would be added to your memorial photo album.

Many of these photos are sought after by collectors and can go for large sums of money. Especially sought after are entire albums, photos that are metal and those of young children and babies.

A good source of these pictures may be found at http://memorialphotosofthedead.wordpress.com/ and if you venture there please be advised as to what you will see. There are photos from the Victorian era as well as posed photos of gunned down armed robbers and pictures of famous people who have died since the Victorian era.

The Victorian era is filled with mysterious ideals and love for long forgotten traditions, still some we are using today.