Skull gate of the Zuiderkerkhof

A gate you could walk past

The skull gate is easy to miss. It stands on the Sint Antoniesbreestraat, a busy street where most people are watching the bikes or their phones. Stop and look up, and you will see skulls on top of the gate.

The gate belongs to the Zuiderkerkhof, the old graveyard of the Zuiderkerk, the church just behind it. It costs nothing and takes five minutes. It is worth the walk because one small piece of stone tells you how people in the old city thought about death.

What the skulls are saying

Skulls above a graveyard entrance were a familiar way to remind passers-by that life is short. The idea has a Latin name, memento mori, which means "remember that you must die". It was a plain message to the living: this is where everyone ends up.

The church behind the gate has a clearer date. The Zuiderkerk was designed by Hendrick de Keyser and finished in 1611. It was the first church built in Amsterdam for the Protestant congregation. The city was growing fast, and the graveyard served the neighbourhood around it. I have no firm date for the gate itself, so I will not give you one. What you see is a gate that has outlasted its graveyard.

What to look for

Stand on the opposite pavement first, so you can take in the whole gate with the church behind it. Then step closer and look at the skulls. Notice how they are carved, and how the faces look back at you.

Then turn and look at the Zuiderkerk. Its tower rises above the street. Look at the brick and the pale stone trim, and at how calm the building looks beside the traffic.

Try to picture the street without the cars. This was a crowded quarter of merchants, craftsmen and newcomers. The graveyard was part of daily life here, not something kept out of sight.