Memorialized- in Rock

Whenever someone passes from this life to the next, we often strive to memorialize them into something that will last for a very long time, even beyond our own lives. Some people try to do this with something concrete that will last, something physical. Others try to do this with art, thus combining the folk knowledge associated with remembering the dead and creating art. Throughout history, many civilizations have combined these two aspects of the concrete and the artistic and created statues of the dead as their method of memorializing the dead.

As far back as possibly 2900 BC, the Sumerians were creating votive figurines that served a variety of purposes, possibly including memorializing the dead. These figures were often buried at ziggurats once a family member died, possibly to ask the gods for remission of sins. This is the oldest form of sculpture memorialization popularly found, though there are some scholarly disputes as to how accurate they functioned as tokens for forgiveness.