Saturday, January 21, 2012

Missing the Point-Meaning or Mistake?

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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