Since exhumations are all the rage right now, I thought I’d share my favorite: Elizabeth Siddal, artist and model to the Pre-Raphaelites.

Siddal died of a laudanum overdose at the age of 32 in 1862 in London. Her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, left a journal containing the only copies of many of his poems in her coffin, tucking it away in her famous red hair.

A few weeks ago I heard this story on NPR about the St. Cuthbert Gospel, Europe’s oldest intact book, which the British Library recently paid $14 million to acquire.

The book is thought to date from seventh-century England and is in astonishingly good condition. This may be due to the fact that for four of its many centuries the book was not in anyone’s hands, but rather tucked away inside the coffin of Saint Cuthbert. From Wikipedia:

The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert’s personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert’s death. It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert’s coffin when his remains were placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. 

Image: Miniature from Bede’s Prose Life of St Cuthbert (late 12th century), depicting the discovery of St. Cuthbert’s incorrupt corpse, via Wikipedia.

life:

April 26, 1865: John Wilkes Booth dies

… or did he? As questioned by this LIFE Magazine article:

The cadaver shown on the opposite page is the mummy of a house painter named John St. Helen who committed suicide in Enid, Okla., Jan. 13, 1903. His mortal remains, embalmed with arsenic, are now a main attraction of Jay Gould’s Million Dollar Spectacle, a carnival traveling the Midwest. The carnival bills the corpse as that of John Wilkes Booth, the actor who shot Lincoln.

Officially, Booth was shot as he tried to flee a burning barn near Bowling Green, Va., on April 26, 1865, twelve days after the assassination. But the story persists that the man shot was not Booth, that Booth escaped and live for years in the Southwest. Usually he calls himself St Helens, though sometimes he said he was the son of Marshal Ney who, according to legend, fled France and settled in North Carolina. St. Helen confessed that he was Booth to Finis Bates, later Attorney General of Tennessee, who obtained his corpse after his death and rented it to carnivals. Bate’s widow sold it for $1,000. It has changed hands many times since, bringing bad luck to its owners. One went broke and was killed in a hold-up. The present owner, Joseph B. Harkin, a former Tattooed Man, lost a comfortable fortune since he bought the mummy for $5,000 in 1932. Since he joined Gould’s show last year, however, his fortunes have changed. The mummy is a big attraction.

In 1931 a group of doctors examined the corpse and found that it had certain marks which Booth had: short left leg, distorted right thumb, scar on neck. But these findings did not convince historians, who generally pooh-pooh the story, agree that this mummy is not and never was the body of John Wilkes Booth.

Dun. Dun. Dun.

Love this article over at TIME—Top 10 Famous Stolen Body Parts—featuring Anne Boleyn’s heart, Geronimo’s skull, Napoleon’s penis, and more, including this tidbit:

the 16th century, St. Francis Xavier spent a lot of time on his feet, spreading the gospel throughout Spain, France, Italy, Malaysia, Japan, Sri Lanka and India, dying at sea en route to China. When a group of Christians disinterred his body a few months later, they were surprised to see it in a perfect state of preservation. But just as in life, his “incorrupt body” didn’t stay at rest for long. In its first public exhibition of corpse in Goa, India, in fit of reverence, a Portuguese woman bit off his big toe. Allegedly, the toe gushed blood, and she was caught when people followed the grisly trail to her home.

Kind of surprised that Juan Perón’s hands didn’t make the list.

Image: Painting of St. Francis Xavier in the Kobe City Museum, via Wikipedia.

obitoftheday:

Obit of the Day: The Man Who Died Twice

This is Lincoln Hall’s second obituary. His first was written on May 26, 2006 by several Australian newspapers. Hall had been left on the face of Mount Everest, suffering from altitude sickness, without shelter, food, or oxygen. Several sherpas had spent all of the previous day trying to lead Mr. Hall down the mountain, but Hall succumbed to swelling in his brain and fell unconscious. Attempts to revive him, including poking him in the eye, failed and the sherpas were ordered to save themselves and return to base camp.

When word reached home, newspapers published glowing tributes to his life as a climber, the man who organized the first Australian expedition to Everest, and director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation which raises money for school construction in Nepal. He would be missed.

Until later that same day when an American expedition found him at 10,000 feet, dangling his feet over the side of the mountain, half-dressed. Hall had survived but was still suffering from altitude sickness which caused irrational behavior and hallucinations. The expedition cancelled their summit and working with the lsherpas spent the day rescuing Hall. When he was finally brought down the mountain he was suffering from frostbite and a chest infection. No one before, or since, has survived on Everest at that altitude overnight without oxygen. Hall’s lasting memory was the loss of eight of his fingertips.

Lincoln Hall, who died of mesothelioma brought on by asbestos exposure as a child, was 56 years old when he died the second time.

(Image of Hall recovering after his fateful climb is courtesy of adelaidenow.com.au)

The Boot Box Tragedy

An Australian murder-mystery from Rachael Weaver’s article “The Morgue” in Meanjin:

On 17 December 1898 three boys reported having seen a wooden trunk bobbing in the Yarra River near the Church Street bridge. The Richmond police soon managed to retrieve it—still floating though wired to a heavy stone. As they raised it from the water, the side of the box broke away, revealing a human leg, so they prised it open on the spot and found the naked body of a young woman. […] There was nothing to identify the woman’s body and so it was put on display in the hope that she would be recognised. Those who hurried to view it were described as ‘sensation-hunters eager to describe the appearance of the body to their acquaintances’. Parties of clairvoyants joined the throngs, offering their services to help unravel the mystery.

By 22 December, due to warm weather accelerating the deterioration of the corpse, authorities undertook to bury the body after first removing the jaws, which were missing several teeth, with a view to a future identification. But this was not to be. Two days after Christmas it was announced instead that the whole head had been severed from the body, plunged into a glass cylinder of methylated spirits, and placed on exhibition. The head alone continued to draw unparalleled public interest, but no useful information, so on 5 January 1899 two police detectives carried it to the General Post Office inside a cedar box. There it was removed from the spirits by cords that had been fixed to it for the purpose and mounted on a wire mesh partition in the letter carrier’s room where it was shown to all the city’s postmen that evening.

Find out what happened.

The Shrine of St. Amandus; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Flemish, early 13th century with significant later additions. From Kathryn B. Gerry’s article on the Treasures of Heaven exhibit:

Amandus was the bishop of Maastricht and the founder and abbot of the Monastery of Elnon, near Tournai, where he was buried after his death (ca. 679). Before the end of the seventh century, he was considered a saint, and a pilgrimage cult developed at Elnon, eventually requiring that his bones be housed in a reliquary that could be shown to the faithful. In addition to being visited by pilgrims and carried in procession on feast days, the relics of St. Amandus were taken on a tour of the region around Elnon at least twice: once in 1066 to raise funds to rebuild the monastery after it was destroyed by fire, and again in 1107 to remind ambitious nobles of the monastery’s power and privileges. At least one earlier reliquary for St. Amandus must have existed, but it was destroyed or lost prior to the thirteenth century, perhaps in the fire of 1066. The figure at one of the gable-shaped ends is presumably Amandus; the other end, now empty, probably originally contained a figure of Christ. Although many such reliquaries were destroyed or sold to collectors during periods of religious reformation and political revolution, some continued to be used into the modern period: a reliquary similar to that of St. Amandus is still owned by the religious brotherhood of St. Symphorian in Belgium, and carried in public procession on several occasions during the year. Over the centuries, reliquaries such as this were likely to suffer some wear. Extensive scientific testing has shown that this reliquary was made in the early thirteenth century, but that it has been repaired and modified throughout the centuries as it continued to be used in the service of the cult of St. Amandus. The most recent modifications, however, were made by a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century art dealer hoping to “improve” the piece and make it more marketable.

I’m an Amanda, so this appeals to me greatly. However, if I were a saint, I would have preferred the tour of Flanders before dying.

Interesting story. I also found this article on the BBC site, which gives more details on what happened to Charles Byrne when he died:

In April 1782, a real, live giant appeared in London. Charles Byrne was said to be a majestic 8ft 4in (2.54 metres) in height and able to light his pipe on street lamps. Now, the macabre events that took place after his death have finally allowed modern genetics to deliver a new twist to the story of the “Irish Giant” – and could change the lives of patients today.

From double-headed cows to eight-legged pigs, the Georgians paid handsomely to gawp at all manner of wondrous creatures, and also people afflicted by rare conditions: bearded women, dwarves and giants. After death, many found their way to John Hunter, the anatomist and founder of modern surgery, who was an obsessive collector of anatomical curiosities. It is almost certain that he met Byrne – perhaps one of the tallest men ever to have lived – and decided that he had to have his skeleton.

But Byrne had other ideas. He not only refused Hunter’s requests for his body but asked to be buried at sea to make it an impossibility. Hunter was undeterred and, as Byrne’s health deteriorated, had the young man followed. In 1783, aged just 22, Byrne died and, according to his wishes, his coffin was taken to the coast by friends. Hunter’s agents then sprung into action, getting the friends drunk before switching the body for stones. Hunter then boiled the corpse for 24 hours to procure the bones and hid the skeleton, not daring to show it for many years.

xmorbidcuriosityx:

Royal College of Surgeons rejects call to bury skeleton of ‘Irish giant’

Ethics experts say exhibit of 7ft 7in tall man, who lived in the 1780s, should be removed from display and put to rest at sea

Museum chiefs have rejected a suggestion by law and medical ethics experts that the skeleton of an 18th century man known as the “Irish giant” should be removed from display and buried at sea.

Charles Byrne, originally from County Londonderry, stood just over 7ft 7in tall. He found fame in the 1780s exhibiting himself as a curiosity or “freak” in London. Celebrity life eventually got the better of him, and he took to drink and died at his home in Charing Cross aged just 22.

After his death, his body was acquired by the surgeon John Hunter, and his skeleton remains at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

In the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, Len Doyal, emeritus professor of medical ethics at Queen Mary, University of London, and Thomas Muinzer, a lawyer at the School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast, call for the skeleton to be buried at sea “as Byrne intended for himself”.

(via xmorbidcuriosityx)

Chaucer died in 1400. Just the year before, he had begun renting a garden tenement at Westminster Abbey, and so he was buried in a modest grave in one of the abbey’s chapels. It wasn’t until about a century and a half later, in 1556, that the ornate tomb shown here was constructed for him (elsewhere in the Abbey, in what is now known as Poets’ Corner) and his bones exhumed and moved into it.

mediumaevum:

Tomb Of Geoffrey Chaucer, Westminster Abbey

1904 
negative, gelatin on glass 

One of the twelve martyred saints on display in Waldsassen, Bavaria, near the Czech border. They’re known as the Holy Bodies.

The skeletons were exhumed from the Roman catacombs sometime between 1688 and 1765. Then they got all spiffy.

Gucci says, “Burr.”

Image source: Luxe et Vanités.

Great post from Atlas Obscura’s blog about the Corpse Bride of Portugal.

It may be awkward, but when the king tells you to kiss the hand of his dead mistress, you damn well kiss that cold, dead hand.