Ash Pendant
The ash pendant is a modern remembrance pendant with a tightly sealed hollow setting that holds a small quantity of a deceased person's ashes - today the fastest-growing jewellery form in the modern mourning and remembrance market.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
The ash pendant is the central jewellery form of the modern remembrance market. Whereas the mourning locket (Mourning Locket), the mourning ring (Mourning Ring (Memorial Ring)) and the mourning brooch (Mourning Brooch) are historical forms with centuries of tradition behind them, the ash pendant is a genuinely modern one - arising in the 1980s and 1990s, when cremation became the majority form of burial in the Western world and families began looking for ways to carry a physically tangible part of the deceased person with them.
Currently available
Occasions
Ash pendants are commissioned in several specific contexts:
- After the cremation, before the interment - part of the ashes is enclosed in the pendant, the remainder interred in the urn
- At the interment, as a family set - several family members each receive a small ash pendant
- When the ashes are scattered - if the family inters the urn in a lake, in woodland or in a scattering meadow, a small portion can be preserved permanently in jewellery
- On the loss of a sibling - remembrance pendants for the siblings or parents of a deceased child
- On the loss of a pet - a variant of the ash pendant holds the ashes of a deceased animal
Personalisation
Four paths of personalisation dominate:
Engraved inscription. The reverse of the pendant carries a name, date of death or a short motto (see Engraving and Inscriptions). On pendants with sufficient surface, a longer quotation or biblical verse is also possible.
Visible layer of ash. With the cast-in technique the ashes are visibly cast into an acrylic-resin or glass pendant. The ash particles appear as pale grey striations or cloud-like patterns. Some workshops combine ashes with colour pigments - as a blue, green or amber accent, for example.
Choice of symbol. Classical symbols - cross, heart, angel, butterfly, anchor (see Angels and Putti, Hourglass) - are integrated into the front face of the pendant.
Combination pendants. Some models unite several remembrance elements: an ash capsule, a fingerprint plaque and a small lock of hair within a single gold mount.
Material
The choice of material is markedly broader than with historical mourning pendants:
- Stainless steel 316L - hypoallergenic, robust, inexpensive, often the entry-level option
- Sterling silver 925 - the classic material, takes engraving well, requires regular care (tarnishing)
- Gold 585 / 750 - high quality, hard-wearing, permanent, for bespoke work
- Titanium - light, hypoallergenic, for clients with a nickel allergy
- Glass - for the cast-in technique, often in Murano or borosilicate glass designs
- Acrylic resin - for transparent pendants with a visible layer of ash
- Combination - gold mount with a glass core, silver mount with an acrylic insert
Closure technique
Three closure technologies dominate:
Laser-sealed threaded closure. A fine-threaded miniature screw closes a cylindrical capsule. After filling, the thread is sealed with a laser or with a chemical thread-locking compound. Advantage: comparatively simple to manufacture. Disadvantage: in theory it can be reopened.
Cast-in technique. The ashes are cast in acrylic resin or low-temperature glass. The result is a solid block that is then set into a mount. Advantage: irreversibly sealed, no loss possible. Disadvantage: technically demanding, less flexible in terms of design.
Solder sealing. A flat capsule is filled and soldered shut with a thin gold or silver plate. Advantage: entirely tight, very stable. Disadvantage: requires very fine soldering, feasible only in specialised workshops.
History
The ash pendant is a genuinely modern jewellery form. Historical predecessors - relic pendants holding hair or fragments of bone (see Reliquary Pendant, Mourning Locket) - have existed since the eighteenth century, but the specific form containing enclosed ashes only emerges once cremation becomes the majority form of burial.
The first documented workshop for ash-capsule jewellery opened in the USA in 1985. In Germany the form was imported from the 1990s onwards, initially disputed in legal terms (see Burial Laws and the Ashes of the Deceased (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)). In the 2000s a distinct German, Austrian and Swiss workshop scene established itself, operating partly in a legal grey area and partly with foreign partners.
With the arrival of memorial diamonds (see Memorial Diamond) in the early 2000s and of the cast-in technique in acrylic, further modern sub-variants of ash jewellery emerged.
The ash pendant today
Three dominant variants shape the modern market:
The classic capsule. A discreet cylindrical or heart-shaped pendant in stainless steel, silver or gold with a laser-sealed threaded closure. Prices: €80–500. The most common variant.
Cast acrylic or glass pendant. A transparent pendant with a visible layer of ash, often with a pigment accent. Prices: €300–1,500.
Bespoke work in gold. An individually designed gold mount with an integrated ash capsule or cast-in ash. Prices: €800–4,000.
Care and wear
Ash pendants are largely low-maintenance:
- Stainless steel and titanium pendants: practically maintenance-free, contact with water is unproblematic
- Silver pendants: regular cleaning against tarnish, protect from sulphur-bearing lotions
- Gold pendants: occasional cleaning, contact with water is unproblematic
- Glass and acrylic pendants: protect from impact (glass) or from UV light (acrylic can yellow)
The service life of a properly sealed ash capsule is effectively unlimited. With a laser-sealed threaded closure, workshops recommend inspection every 10–15 years. Cast pendants require no inspection - the seal is permanent.
How the piece is worn is entirely open - daily, on anniversaries, or only on particular occasions. Unlike historical mourning forms, the ash pendant is not intended to signal grief publicly, but to serve a private remembrance kept close to the body.
Questions about this entry
- Is it legal in Germany to wear ashes in jewellery?
Yes, with one restriction: in Germany the ashes may not be removed from the urn in order to fill a jewellery pendant - this violates the cemetery-interment requirement and the burial legislation of the federal states (see Burial Laws and the Ashes of the Deceased (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)). What is permitted, by contrast, is transporting the urn abroad (for example to Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium), filling the pendant there, and bringing the already-filled piece back into Germany. Specialised funerary workshops in those countries offer this service. In Austria and Switzerland the removal of ashes is legally less constrained.
- How much ash is enclosed in the pendant?
Very little - typically between 0.5 and 3 grams. That is a minute quantity compared with the total ash volume of an adult (roughly 2–3 kilograms). This small amount is enclosed in a tightly sealed capsule - either with a fine-threaded, laser-sealed screw closure, or cast directly into a glass pendant or an acrylic-resin capsule.
- Which closure techniques are secure?
Three closures are considered durably tight. Laser-sealed threaded closure - a fine-threaded screw capsule fused shut by laser sealing. The screw can no longer be undone. Cast-in technique - the ashes are cast directly into an acrylic-resin or glass matrix and the block is then set into a gold mount. Advantage: no closure, and therefore no closure risk. Solder sealing - after filling, a small capsule is soldered shut with a thin gold or silver plate. Solid, but technically demanding.
- What does an ash pendant cost?
The price range is wide. Simple stainless-steel capsules with a laser-sealed threaded closure: from €80. Sterling silver and gold pendants with a relic setting: €200–800. Bespoke pieces with a gold mount and individual engraving: €800–3,000. Cast-in technique in acrylic or glass with an elaborate gold mount: €500–2,500. Memorial diamonds made from ashes (see Memorial Diamond): €3,000–25,000.
Further reading
- Cremation in America - Stephen Prothero (2001)
- Tod und Trauer in Deutschland - eine soziologische Analyse - Norbert Fischer (2001)
- Material Culture of Death - Final Practices - Margaret Schwartz (2015)
Related entries
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Core conceptsMemorial Jewellery
Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.
- Modern memorial jewelleryAsh Jewellery
Ash jewellery is a modern memorial piece in which a small quantity of cremation ashes is permanently enclosed - usually in a hollow setting with a rock-crystal window, or embedded in synthetic resin.
- Modern memorial jewelleryMemorial Diamond
The memorial diamond is a synthetically grown diamond cultivated from the carbon of cremation ashes or a lock of the deceased person's hair - the most technically demanding and most durable keepsake of the present day.
- Modern memorial jewelleryHair Pendant (Modern Memorial Jewellery)
The modern hair pendant carries a lock of the person remembered in a tightly sealed hollow setting at the throat - the direct technical continuation of the Victorian hairwork tradition, today made with modern workshop techniques and usually combined with a laser engraving or inscription on the outer face.
- Jewellery formsMourning Locket
The mourning locket is a pendant worn on a neck chain with an interior compartment - a concealed carrier of hair, photograph or inscription that keeps the memento close to the body and has been, from the eighteenth century to the present, the most important private form of mourning jewellery.
- Jewellery formsFingerprint Pendant
A fingerprint pendant carries the line pattern of a fingerprint, milled or laser-engraved into gold, silver or platinum - today the defining form of modern remembrance jewellery and the technical successor format to the Victorian mourning locket.
- Jewellery formsMourning Ring (Memorial Ring)
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of a deceased person, usually in the form of an inscription, an image, a lock of hair or a fingerprint.
- Practice & lawBurial Laws and the Ashes of the Deceased (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
In Germany, ashes are largely subject to mandatory cemetery burial (*Friedhofszwang*); in Austria practice is more liberal and varies by state; in Switzerland it is largely unrestricted. This has concrete consequences for ash jewellery and memorial diamonds; the legal position is country-specific and still changing.
- People & cultural historyMourning Rituals in the German-Speaking World
German-speaking mourning rituals differ perceptibly from the English court-mourning tradition - shaped by confessional division (Catholic / Protestant), middle-class sensibility, Biedermeier domesticity and an independent culture of memorial jewellery which carried different emphases in Vienna, Berlin and Munich according to region.