For centuries in Western cultures, special keepsakes—particularly in the form of jewelry—have been made to help in the mourning and remembrance of dead loved ones. The Victorian Era is well-known to have many rules and stipulations on acceptable conduct, and even brought new levels of formality to the process of mourning; they made recommendations on everything from the length of time people should mourn, to the styles, fabrics and colors of clothing that they wore for different durations of the mourning period. Jewelry played an expanded role in this, with a wider variety of styles and options, many of which were based around keeping locks of the departed’s hair.

Of course, there are still forms of mourning jewelry made today, though they are often not referred to as such. The most common keepsake now is the use of cremains—the ground up remains of the cremation process, often called “ashes”—with other possibilities for more elaborate options.

Here, then, are five examples of Victorian-era or older pieces of mourning jewelry and five modern ones:

Crystal Coffin Ring

A ring from 1728 featuring a skeleton in a crystal coffin.

Shoe Buckle

An expensive piece of both mourning jewelry and men’s fashion, this shoe buckle from the late 1600s contains woven hair from the departed in addition to a gold-thread inscription and enamel skull.

Enamel Name Ring

Enamel pieces were often made as mourning jewelry, such as this ring (probably from the mid-1800s), with the names of the deceased.

The use of white enamel was to symbolize innocence and purity, like children have, and is therefore indicative that the three names were of children who died.

Hairwork Bracelets

Hair was not only kept in lockets or under crystal, but was often woven into jewelry pieces, such as these bracelets from the late 1700s.

Looped Hair Locket

Showing one of the many quintessential Victorian-era hair-based mourning pieces, this locket commemorates the loss of a child, not quite 4 years old with both loops of her hair and an engraved gold name panel.

Cremain Urn Pendant

Most modern mourning and memorial jewelry centers on having a container for cremains, which can then be sealed. Some styles require a specialist to fill, and others, like this stainless steel one, are more DIY and available through many online retailers.

Reinventing the Locket

Since its invention, photography has been one of the central means of keeping memories of dead loved ones alive: lockets make them portable pieces of jewelry. Of course, with laser engraving and metal printing, it’s now possible to have something other than a tiny picture frame holding paper.

Mod Memento Mori

This hourglass pendant seemingly combines the old tradition of death-related imagery from mortality-pondering memento mori pieces with modern basic-cylinder cremains containers, creating a haunting memento.

Custom Reliquaries

With the internet and easy access to many artisans, it’s also possible to design and have a custom piece made in memory of someone.

“This pendant contains denim from a father’s favorite pair of jeans wrapped in gold wire, a diamond tie clip he wore because the diamond was both of their birthstones, a loose emerald and turquoise, plus the Levi’s tag from his jeans!”

Via the Jewelry Nerd comes this piece, created by Alix Bluh (link goes to Modern Relics, Alix’s website).