I don’t even know if I’m putting this in the correct forum, but here it is.
I don’t know what this is, but all I can come up with, is that it’s a paperweight. Considering the small size, it’s awfully heavy to be a paperweight. I’ve never saw one that weighed so much.
We had four old sheds torn down recently. We have found many different, interesting things in those sheds. In the rubble of one, I found this. It’s an unpolished granite (maybe unpolished marble?) block. It has a name engraved on it.
It weighs just shy of 3 1/2 pounds. It is only 5 3/4" long, 3 1/2" wide, and
1 3/4" tall.
To make the engraving more readable, I rubbed some baby powder into it, so it would contrast a bit better, and we would be able to see what it says. I have no idea what language it might be…German? Swiss? Maybe someone here will know.
I don’t know where it came from, nor how/why my grandpa, who owned this house and property before I did (he lived here at least 65 years before his death, over a decade ago), came into possession of it. He was never in a war, so I know that he didn’t collect it from a foreign country and bring it home with him. I did have a great uncle who was in WWI, so maybe he brought it home, and gave it to my grandpa. No idea, though.
Here are a couple of pictures of it. The second one has a Coke bottle sitting next to it, for a size comparison.
It looks like a German last name. What do the letters look like to you? It’s hard for me to make out from the photos. I’m guessing “D. S (w or ü) l (?) holm”
The letters are the problem. I can’t make them out very well, honestly. It looks like the letters are:
(Not sure, but it looks like) G. Su(the ‘u’ has an umlaut above it)il(something I can’t make out, but maybe a ‘c’)(the next maybe an ‘i’)holm.
Would something that small be a grave marker? I know that maybe for a baby, or child’s grave it might be fine to be that small. From what I’ve saw in old cemeteries in the U.S., anyway.
Looks kind of like a memorial brick. You know how public institutions raise money by letting you buy a brick with your name on it, that they include in a new walkway or whatever? Is that just a recent American thing, or could German churches have done it in the past?
It looks like. . . a paving brick. Wonder if it’s an early form of those bricks with names on them, of donors and such. Perhaps marked a house of a family?
Looks like H. (J?)üderholm to me. Someone’s name.
Ooo, that’s a good one, Sattua! I didn’t think of that.
I’d rather it be that, than the grave marker for someone. I would hate to think I’ve got someone’s grave marker, and now there’s nothing there on the grave for people to remember where he/she was buried. That’s just sad.
In Ireland some families have a smooth rock about that size inlaid in the door jamb. There is a prayer or blessing carved into it, and they each pass a hand over it each time they go through the doorway. The idea is that the prayer or blessing is invoked each time it is touched, so it’s considered rude to pass through their door without touching it.
