# Where does the traditional "ghost shape" come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523 "2004-06-09T20:37:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/1 "2004-06-09T20:37:24Z")
You know the traditional “ghost shape” – the one that resembles an oven mitt with thumbs on both sides? Or a quick one-line sketch of a guy with a sheet over his head and his arms up? It doesn’t really look like a person, or much like the famous ghosts of fiction, who tend to resemble actual people. Yet we all recognize the “ghost shape” as a ghost when we see it. Where did that shorthand image come from? What’s its history? How long has it been part of popular iconography? I’m sure it predates Scooby Doo. (This was discussed once before, [way back in 1999](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=7291), but while some interesting theories were proposed, no consensus answer was reached. I hate when I come up with a good question that’s come up before.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/2 "2004-06-09T20:54:21Z")
Pac-man. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/3 "2004-06-09T21:02:27Z")
**carnivorous** beat me to it… only reason I opened the thread. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/4 "2004-06-09T21:03:37Z")
My Hypothesis- Burial shrouds. Traditional Jewish burial is to put the corpse in the coffin naked, but wrapped in a special white sheet. Various references to shrouds and cerements have led me to believe that well into the middle ages, various Christian sects also followed this tradition. The standard ghost shape represents either a corpse walking about in its burial shroud, or a burial shroud animated by the spirit of the deceased. At some point, the majority of Jews and Christians switched to dressing a corpse in formal wear, but the image remains. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/5 "2004-06-10T18:47:14Z")
In the English-speaking world, you find literary references to burial shrouds well into the Twentieth Century. I am not certain, but I believe that it is the standard procedure in some parts of Europe and the Middle East even today. If you want to see what a shrouded body looks like, watch the movie _You Only Live Twice._ When James Bond is “buried at sea”, he is wrapped in sailcloth, the Navy version of a shroud. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/6 "2004-06-10T18:53:45Z")
You mean, the full-torso, non-terminating vaporous apparition? Well, that’s what they _look_… Oh, wait. This is GQ. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/7 "2004-06-10T19:31:12Z")
**mbh** There are plenty of Orthodox Jews who still wrap their dead in shrouds. I’m sure there are numerous Christian sects which do as well. However, AFAIK, if we go back a few centuries we’ll find shrouds to be much more common. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/8 "2004-06-10T20:20:49Z")
18th and 19th century pictures of ghosts in Western art almost always pictured them as glowing, semi-transparent versions of the person as he or she looked alive, dressed in clothing. For example, a 19th century engraving of [the ghost of Hamlet’s father](http://www.colby.edu/personal/l/leosborn/images/hamletpage3a.jpg). I think the cartoonish, blobby ghost, or the oven mitt type as you say, arose from Halloween becoming a widespread holiday in American around the turn of the 20th century. Commercial art on Halloween cards and Halloween decorations aimed for a non-frightening, anonymous ghost type that was easy to draw. The archetypal modern ghosts were certainly in the 1937 Mickey Mouse cartoon _Lonesome Ghosts_. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/9 "2004-06-11T01:34:53Z")
19th Century spirit photography, these undoubtedly genuine :rolleyes: photographs (the camera never lies :dubious: ) often showed images of deceased loved ones wrapped in ectoplasm, a mysterious substance that defied scientific analysis, but for some unknown reason bore an uncanny resemblance to cheesecloth. How can any rational person doubt the truth when you have convincing photographs like [this one](http://www.prairieghosts.com/ph_history1.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2004, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/10 "2004-06-11T16:34:52Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > 19th Century spirit photography, these undoubtedly genuine :rolleyes: photographs (the camera never lies :dubious: ) often showed images of deceased loved ones wrapped in ectoplasm, a mysterious substance that defied scientific analysis, but for some unknown reason bore an uncanny resemblance to cheesecloth. Haven’t seen Shadow Of The Vampire in a while, so the wording might be off- “What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?” “Ectoplasm, the stuff of the spirit world. I saw a medium pull the stuff out of his mouth.” “What did it look like?” “Like seaweed. What about you? What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?” “Greta Schroeder naked.” “Mm! That beat’s ectoplasm!” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-traditional-ghost-shape-come-from/249523/11 "2004-06-19T07:42:33Z")
A little more research on this subject. The “oven mitt” ghost shape originated even more recently than I thought. Ghost images are virtually missing from commercial Halloween art from the 1910s through the 1940s. Collector [Mark D. Ledenbach](http://www.halloweencollector.com/history/), author of the book _Vintage Halloween Collectibles_, writes: > [@](#): > > The imagery of vintage Halloween items through the 1940s is compelling and memorable. The hierarchy of imagery has always been fairly logical: the pumpkin, or its more humanized incarnation, the Jack-O-Lantern, forms the bottom of the pyramid as the most common image. Ascending this pyramid, the middle layers would encompass black cats, skeletons and owls. The upper-most layers would consist of witches, veggie people and bats, with the pinnacle surely being occupied by devils. This means that within any given genre, devil imagery is the rarest to find.