Angelic Sphere

Detail of a memorial tombstone at Shockoe Hill Cemetery [link]

This represents a Christianized form of the winged solar disk from the iconography of the Middle Eastern and West African cultures like Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Such trappings became part of the what would be called the Egyptian Revival of the early 19th century when scientific and military expeditions finally unearthed and unlocked the mysteries of the past of the Nile cultures. It reached fad proportions by the late 19th Century. Despite this, the inclusion of what were considered pagan symbols was not without controversy. Often, incongruous elments such as Greco-Roman style angels or other symbols had to be placed to avoid censure, much less revocation of permission to build. The familar long winged Egyptian wings and bulls horns supporting the sun disk have been replaced with Roman style angel wings here.