The mummified bodies, body parts, and bones of holy men and women have been preserved and revered all over the world. These human remains are venerated because they remind worshippers of the life and works of the deceased, but this… Read More ›
History
The body of a saint is displayed at a church in…Manhattan?!
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) was born in the in the Italian village of Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, in northern Italy. Frances Cabrini was born a few months premature and suffered health problems the rest of her life because of complications associated… Read More ›
Resurrection through decomposition: The role of secondary burials in the journey to the Afterlife
For some cultures death is the beginning of a spiritual purification process that starts with decomposition and ends with skeletonization. The people in these cultures believe that before a soul can reunite with their ancestors in the Land of the Dead the body must completely… Read More ›
The cranium of the last man hanged in Essex County, NY
The cranium of Henry Debosnys (1836-1883) is stored in a glass case on the upper floor of the Adirondack History Center Museum in Elizabethtown, NY. Debosnys was of French descent and born in Portugal in 1836. After traveling the world,… Read More ›
A criminal’s relic: The macabre history of severed hands
A traditional form of punishment, under Sharia, Islamic law, and in Medieval Europe involved publically amputating a criminal’s body part, often the one used to commit a crime. The pain of the amputation and the shame of the permanent mark… Read More ›
The reconstructed face of an archbishop who was beheaded in the 14th century
Simon of Sudbury (ca. 1316-14 June 1381) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1375 to 1380, crowned King Richard II in 1377, and was the Lord Chancellor of England from 1380-1381. He became extremely unpopular because the lower classes believed he… Read More ›
Living with the dead: Communities that live among graves and human remains
Attitudes toward corpses and death in twentieth-century Western society range from morbid fascination to forbidden subject. So it’s unusual when the news reports stories about people who are found living with a dead relative. Typically these tend to be one… Read More ›
The incorruptible sleeping beauties
In Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religions, incorruptibility is the belief that if the corpse of a saint does not decompose it is a sign that God has intervened because of that person’s holiness. Incorruptibility is a temporary state of… Read More ›
Smiling with a dead man’s teeth
Today dentures are commercially produced in a dental laboratory or by a denturist using tissue shaded acrylics. These false teeth are one-of-a-kind because they are made to fit the wearer’s mouth and to look like natural teeth. But this process… Read More ›
Four practical uses for human bones
The human skeleton is the most enduring part of the human body because, when well-preserved, bones can survive thousands of years. The skeleton tends to be treated with reverence and honor because it is recognizably human and is all that… Read More ›
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