Symbols of death
As long as this life exists the death exists as a polarity for life and as an inevitable end of life of every living creature. People faced with death long before they apply their efforts to explain all the wonders of the world. As they faced a death the fear for death appeared in their hearts, as death always takes away those one love and care about. So, it was easier for people to believe that death is not the end and that there is another life after it. Frankly speaking, no matter on the peculiarities of cultures each of those states that there is a life after death. And that believe common for all nations and cultures is an indication of humans' fear for death.
As the death is an inevitable end of everyone's life and people face the death during the entire life of humanity the death has become one of the most important questions for people and so there appeared the culture of death and symbols of it. First of all the ceremony of burying is worth to pay attention to. There are a lot of symbols used during that ceremony. The number of flowers people bring to give the last honours to dead man should be the even number. Another symbol is cross that is placed in the bedside of grave.
Though, if you think that those symbols are similar for all nations you are wrong. Fro example the Islam's ceremony of burying is not provided with cross as their religion is not developed around the crucifixion of Jesus. Another symbol of death is an angel of Death. This is a symbol also typical only for Christianity and other religions that are considered as the branches of Christianity. The religion of Islam knows no angels and so there are no saints or fallen angels or angels of death.
Another common symbol of death is a skeleton. This symbol is rather wide-spread one and a number of cultures use it to express the danger of inevitable death. There are a lot of examples when the death is expressed through image of skeleton in movies. The black figure dressed up the black smock with hood and with scythe in one's hands is another typical symbol of death for a number of cultures and nation.
A few people know that roses are also may be the symbol of death for some cultures. Though, not every rose may be a symbol of death but only the black one. Though, the black rose is also a symbol of destruction and anarchy. So, a rose is rather complicate object from the point of view of symbology as it may take on different meanings depending on the colour, number of flowers and a culture it is represented at. The same true for the symbol of snake. A snake in most cultures is considered as a symbol of wisdom, though there are also cultures in the beliefs of which a snake is represented as a symbol of death.