Vince, This is another total guess, but could the missing "B" word just be "body" and not a name at all, sort of a variation on "Here lies the body of..."? The carver of this epitaph obviously struggled with both grammar and spelling. I imagine the outer letters, whatever they were, have just worn away over the last 255 years. We're lucky so much has survived. Sherry [email protected] > This is what I make of it... > > 1745 > Maria Opti > Graff Bo_ > Being Buried Here > The 30th of > August Being Eighteen > Years of Age > > I was so presumptuous as to suggest the Bo_ might be a name such as > BOM. This part is, of course, only a total guess, except that the > length of the name has to be absolutely no more than four letters, and > likely only three. What else remains, that is a well-known name of > the area? >