When I first moved to Massachusetts and started to wander cemeteries, the huge number of Masonic symbols was surprising and unfamiliar to me even though my father was a Mason. (In Ohio, where I am from, I had not seen many of these symbols on headstones.) The image below is of a Shriner's symbol on a headstone in Ayer, MA (on Route 111 just south of the Rotary). A Shriner being a Mason who had reached Master Mason level and applied to the Shriners (my apologies for simplifying the definition).
The aspect of this carving that I am baffled by and have not be able to figure out is: where is the fifth point on the star? I've researched on line this symbol, read a lot about Shriners, but I don't find anything that might explain what happened to the fifth point (bottom right). All of the images of various Shriner symbols that I find on line have a full star.
It does look almost as though there is a mark indicating where it would have been patterned for carving. Was it forgotten by the carver? or perhaps, did a Shriner have to earn his points?
Any thoughts?
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