At its simplest level the skull seems to symbolise death. However, even this can be interpreted positively as the survival of the spirit after death rather than the triumph of death over life – of immortality.

The Goth movement used skull jewellery and other apocalyptic iconography right from its start. While it was seen in many quarters as a yearning for the grave, in fact Goth imagery made mainstream society uneasy as it touched a raw nerve – western culture’s fear of mortality and its seeming addiction to fear for the sake of fear. Cold War paranoia was at its peak and some were terrified for the future of humanity, which they feared was about to be wiped out completely by AIDS.

Gamblers often use the image of a skull and dice for good luck, perhaps a reminder of whatever good or bad luck we suffer in life, the end for all of us will always be the same. Contrast this with the winged skull used by the Puritans in New England to symbolise the accent of the soul into heaven; and the use of a similar design by the USAF Hells Angels aircraft squadron and then the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

In the middle ages artists expressed the idea of transitory nature of life through vanitas vanitatum -vanity of vanities – still life paintings reminding the viewer that mankind’s intellectual pursuits (a globe and books) and life’s pleasures (musical instruments and smoking paraphernalia) were ultimately futile, symbolised by a skull and often hammered home by the use of a candle or hourglass.

Shakespeare expresses this in Hamlet, when the prince holds the skull of his servant in his hands:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy […] Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?

The skull also appears in the folklore of pirates, with the skull and crossbones design – sometimes used with the hourglass – although the term “jolly roger” appears to have applied to any pirate flag with a black, and sometimes red, background; the skull and crossbones is now the emblem of the British Royal Navy Submarine Service.

And skull jewellery has lately become fashionable in mainstream society thanks to the enormous success of the Pirates of the Caribbean films in which various skull designs are used as adornment.