The Science Museum of London has a set of 60 eerie little plaster heads that look like miniature death masks. Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832), a well-known 19th century phrenologist, commissioned these bizarre relics to help his students study phrenology. As phrenology… Read More ›
In a display case in the South Cloisters at University College London sits the “Auto-Icon” of Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham (February 15, 1748-June 6, 1832) was a philosopher associated with Utilitarianism-something I had to look up. He was also a… Read More ›
Charnel houses are monuments that serve as reminders that the physical world is fleeting, are shrines that honor patriotic sacrifice, places to commune with the dead, or memorialize the atrocities of genocide. The skull map of Cambodia at the Tuol… Read More ›
The Sedlec Ossuary is a charnel house filled with the remains of an estimated 40,000 people. This “bone church” is famous for its macabre human bone decorations that fill every corner of the building. Although impressive today, the intricate décor… Read More ›
In the Cathedral of Otranto are five large display cases that contain the bones of the “martyrs of Otranto.” The skulls face the cathedral’s visitors and are mixed with long bones and bones of the pelvis. In one of the… Read More ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Founded as the Army Medical Museum in 1862, the National Museum of Health and Medicine was established to document and study the effects of disease and trauma incurred in battle. Medical officers collected specimens embedded with projectiles, while museum staff took… Read More ›
Frederick Bailey Deeming (1853-1892) was an English murderer, conman, thief, and bigamist who was executed in Australia in 1892. Deeming was convicted of murdering his first wife Marie, and his four children, in England in July of 1891, as well… Read More ›
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