A study of the semiotics of female gender in the tombstone motifs of Golestan province

The purpose of this article is the semiotics of the signs related to women on the tombstones of Golestan province, which has been analyzed with Pierce's semiotics model, which divides the signs into three categories: symbolic, indexical, and symbolic. Death as an influential fact in human life has always led to the formation of different cultural values. A part of the intellectual foundations of the society lies in the behaviors related to death, including the methods of burial, mourning, gravestones and markings on them, which has also been of interest in Golestan province. This article seeks to answer the question of how the iconic, profile and symbolic signs of female gender are depicted on the tombstones of Golestan province? And what are the meanings of these signs? The research method is descriptive-analytical and collect Information has been done in the form of library study and field observation. The result of the research shows that symbolic signs were not used in women's tombstones due to religious prohibition and more symbolic and index signs were used that express the character, occupation and religion of the deceased person and have a cultural meaning. .