A tale of two tombstones: strange but true

Geoff Ward
5 min readOct 20, 2020

Amazingly, the same monumental blunder struck memorials to two famous men 160 years apart

Captivated by the form of a ‘miraculous spiral’, a 17th century Swiss mathematician and a 19th century Scottish anatomist each asked for one to be carved on his tombstone — but their wishes failed to be granted.

Geoff Ward

Writer, poet, tutor and mentor in literature and creative writing (MA and BA Hons degrees in English literature), book editor, journalist and musician.