March 2012
59 posts
13 tags
4 tags
maimesy asked: That recent post about the Bacon coffin was a bit of a let down honestly (not saying it was a bad post, it was very funny and interesting), but when I clicked the link to look at it I was expecting a coffin more like the coffins from Ghana (honestly just look up "ghana coffins"). Those coffins are amazing, and you can honestly just request any shape you want. There was a QI episode about...
7 tags
The Order of the Good Death: Mortuary Services for... →
“It seemed kind of kitschy and 50′s until it started talking about how ten thousand bodies would need 5.5 acres of space to spread out and probably half would be unrecognizable due to disfigurement from injury and fire. That’s when SHIT GOT REAL.”
10 tags
“In the email announcing the Bacon Coffin, Justin and Dave added, “Don’t...”
– MSNBC.com: “A coffin for bacon lovers to die for”
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
Scythe
ingridrichter:
Death; time; the cutting off of life; an attribute of Chronos/Saturn and of the figures of the Reaper and Death. The scythe also symbolizes the harvest which, in turn, implies death and rebirth, the destructive and creative powers of the Great Mother.
An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper, 1978.
1 tag
6 tags
Executed Today: Pedro Medina, en flambe (1997) →
Interesting:
The thought of designing an apparatus to stimulate death by electrocution first came to dentist Dr. Albert Southwick in 1881, who watched a drunk man touch the terminal of an electricity generator in Buffalo, New York. Impressed at how quickly and painlessly the man died, he mentioned the incident to his friend, a state senator, who promptly brought the matter to the attention of...
1 tag
1 tag
Life & 6 Months →
xmorbidcuriosityx:
Great blog by doctoral student Gemma Angel about the postmortem preservation of tattooed human skin - check it out!
Via The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice
2 tags
2 tags
11 tags
2 tags
7 tags
Mail Online: Pony-Tailed 130-Year-Old Mummy... →
These mummy pictures make me kind of sad for him. At least his hair is awesome.
12 tags
“‘I’m not sure MRI can prove that someone who is dead (or a mummy) won’t...”
– “The Evolution of Death” by Dick Teresi (salon.com).
6 tags
Those new Titanic pictures from National... →
1 tag
1 tag
4 tags
Morbid Anatomy: The Body of San Giovanni Leonardi,... →
2 tags
7 tags
Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives →
2006 article from the New York Times. Fascinating.
To ensure a son’s contentment in the afterlife, some grieving parents will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury the pair together as a married couple. […]
Villagers and Mr. Yang, the funeral director, said a family searching for a female corpse typically must pay more than 10,000 yuan, or about...
6 tags
io9: Graveyard Life: The hottest new real estate... →
Many Hong Kongers believe that the ghosts of people who died violently, thanks to an accident, murder, or suicide, haunt their former residences and bring bad fortune to the new occupants. As in the US, Hong Kong home sellers are required to disclose whether the previous resident died in the home, and potential buyers do rigorous background checks less they get stuck with a vengeful spirit. The...
14 tags
Saint Hubert
Saint Hubert (ca. 656 - 727), the first Bishop of Liège (in present-day Belgium), is the patron saint of hunters, archers, dogs, forest workers, trappers, mathematicians, opticians, metalworkers, and smelters. He was venerated widely during the Middle Ages.
The National Gallery in London recounts the legend of his exhumation:
The body of Saint Hubert … was exhumed in 825 from St...
3 tags
Zombie gran: 95-year-old Chinese woman terrifies... →
I feel completely trashy posting something from The Mirror, but what the hey.
A doctor at the hospital was quoted as saying: “Thanks to the local tradition of parking the coffin in the house for several days, she could be saved.
But, despite ‘cheating’ death, the same local tradition has left Mrs Xiufeng with nothing as, according to tradition, after a person dies, all their belongings...
4 tags
io9: Who is buried in the Hoover Dam? →
Hint: No one, probably. But Montana’s Fort Peck Dam contains six bodies.
7 tags
12 tags
2 tags
3 tags
7 tags
The Chirurgeon's Apprentice: The Two-Headed Boy of... →
This post from the Dissection Room over on The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice (an entire blog devoted to “the horrors of pre-anaesthetic surgery”!) is about a condition known as craniopagus parasiticus and the case of an 18th-century Bengali boy:
The normal face and head were not malformed. The brains were distinct, each invested in its own membranes; the dura mater of each adhered...
1 tag
Now that I’ve gotten the blog name straight, I’ve set up shop in a number of social media outlets, and I’d like you to join me (if you’re into that sort of thing):
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
1 tag
4 tags
“This and other physical aspects of the pits created permafrost, which preserved...”
– “Artifacts Show Sophistication of Ancient Nomads,” New York Times.
2 tags
8 tags
Korean Mummies!
Did you know there are mummies in Korea? I didn’t, until I found this article from 2007 on National Geographic. (Apparently, archaeologists didn’t, either, until the bodies started showing up, as old cemeteries were moved to make way for new houses in the recent construction boom.)
This person lived about 500 years ago and was found in South Korea. According to National Geographic, the...
1 tag
The Morthouse
New blog name, new domain (morthouse.com), same content! (Here’s why.)
Tumblr fwends: I’ll still appear on your dash as “theossuary,” though, at least for now.
If you’re wondering what a morthouse is, here you go.
1 tag
7 tags
Advice Needed: How Important Are Names?
I recently realized how cheap domain names could be, so last week I bought a domain name for one of my other Tumblrs, one that gets only a fraction of the traffic that this Tumblr gets. Even so, I like having it, and it feels simpler and more “official.” (As much as I love the Tumblr platform, I’d really prefer for “.tumblr.com” not to weigh down the URLs of my...
9 tags
Art of Mourning: Symbolism Sunday, Wheat →
Find out why wheat became a popular (and versatile) symbol in the art of mourning in this article on Art of Mourning:
Wheat has its symbolism baked deeply into the Bread of the Eucharist (Mark 14:22-24), a motif resonant of everlasting life through the belief in Jesus, this is when the motif is bundled with grapes. Within funeral art, we must also consider that wheat within the divine harvest...
12 tags
1 tag
1 tag
5 tags
9 tags
1 tag
2 tags
CBS News: 73-Year-Old Twins Found Dead and Alone... →
Another strange, sad story:
When they were young, Patricia and Joan Miller sang and danced for Bing Crosby, troops and their friends. […] Never married and without children or pets, the Miller sisters withdrew into four-bedroom home in California’s South Lake Tahoe, where they were found dead last week at the age of 73. One was in a downstairs bedroom and the other was in the hallway...
