The Battle of Towton took place on Palm Sunday in 1461 and was one of the grisliest battles of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487). That conflict was so bloody that it’s estimated that tens of thousands of soldiers were massacred. In… Read More ›
Bioarchaeology
Human remains as trophies of war
Soldiers have removed body parts from corpses to keep as trophies as souvenirs of war since ancient times. According to Katy Meyers Emery, mortuary archaeologist and bioarchaeologist, human remains as souvenirs of war can be divided into two categories, trophies… Read More ›
How the bones of 1185 soldiers became part of the largest battlefield skeletal collection
The Visby skeletal collection at the Fornsalen Museum contains the remains of 1185 people who died at the Battle of Visby in 1361 and is the largest battlefield skeletal collection in Europe. Anthropologists from all over the world come to examine these… Read More ›
A mummy murder mystery wrapped in a hoax
In October of 2000 Pakistani authorities heard that a Karachi resident was trying to sell a mummy on the black market for $11 million. When the police interrogated the seller he told them he got the mummy from an Iranian… Read More ›
Stylish deformities – Dental edition
The dental aesthetic of symmetrical white teeth is a modern European standard, but for many people the dental ideal involves carved, stained and/or bejeweled teeth. This is because artificially modified front teeth can communicate cultural affiliation, determine physical attractiveness, and… Read More ›
The strangest places human remains can be found in the U.S.
Cultures have displayed human remains as part of their mortuary practices and as gruesome trophies since ancient times. Today human remains can be seen in museums, in churches and ossuaries, in universities, and even in art galleries. Though certainly ethically… Read More ›
Golden eyes, bronze legs, and wooden toes: Amputation and prosthetics in the ancient world
Although pirates and peg legs are inextricably linked, evidence for amputations and artificial body parts date to antiquity. Limbs have been amputated for thousands of years because of injuries received during battle or accidents, as a treatment for a disease… Read More ›
How the neolithic people of Jericho reconstructed the faces of the dead
Jericho was founded around 9600 BCE and developed into a large settlement with a population of two thousand by about 7000 BCE. During the Neolithic period (abt 10000 BCE to 4500 BCE), the people of Jericho had a mortuary practice of… Read More ›
The game of thrones written in bone, conquistador edition
The bones of infamous conquistador Don Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1476 – June 26th, 1541) rest in an ornate glass, marble, and bronze sarcophagus in a chapel in the Cathedral of Lima in Peru. Though Pizarro’s bones are now in a position of… Read More ›
[Update] New clues in the search for the elusive heart of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
Hurriyet Daily News reports that a team of researchers recently discovered a historical document that indicates Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s (1494-1566) heart and internal organs were buried in a garden in mosque complex in Szigetvar, Hungary. “It says the… Read More ›
You must be logged in to post a comment.