A Memento Mori Ring With A Diamond Flower Top Opening to Reveal an Enameled Skull c.1600s. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Vanitas translates 'remember you must die'. Symbols such as coffins, skeletons, skulls and engravings were placed on jewelry and designed to warn us that eventually we all must die. These were featured on a form of Memento Mori jewelry that was not exactly memorial in nature but more just plain maudlin.