There are many discussions about how to be able to take pictures of a gravestone. Wire brushes, scrapers, chemicals and many other things that could actually harm the stone.

I have an uncle that was killed in WWI in 1918 and is buried in an American Military cemetery in France. All of the Christian crosses and Star of David stones are a pure white composition stone -- possibly a marble.

When I visited there a few years ago, I was told of the grave site and was met by the man in charge of the cemetery. He placed a American Flag next to the stone and had a container with very fine brown sand that was wet. He rubbed it into the inscriptions on the stone and I took my pictures. When I asked him about cleaning it up, he replied that the fine sand would dry, fall out and be washed by nature with rain, thus no damage to the stone.

I have some great pictures of that stone with fourteen thousand others. A proud, tearful occasion.

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