Click Here to Subscribe to Curious History
Famous Skeletons
- Skull of Richard III - Recently discovered with his entire skeleton.
- The Lovers - These two skeletons, discovered in 1972 at Hasanlu in Iran, were nicknamed the Lovers for the affectionate pose they were found in.
- Possible bones of Mona Lisa - The skeleton that woman historians believe was Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous muse, Lisa Gherardin.
- The Elephant Man - Joseph Carey Merrick, born in 1862, never suffered from elephantiasis, but he believed his mother had been frightened by an elephant, causing the bulging tumors that sprouted from his face and eventually reached a circumference of three feet.
- Mesopotamian Human Sacrifice - skulls discovered at the royal cemetery at Ur in Iraq. Around 2,000 burials were recovered, attesting to the practice of human sacrifice on a large scale.
- Skull of pianist André Tchaikowsky - before his death, he donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company to be used in the play Hamlet as Yorick’s skull.
(Source: thedailybeast.com)
Galileo Galilei…Has Body Parts on Display
At the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy, they have some odd artifacts on display - three fingers and a tooth from Galileo Galilei’s corpse.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the greatest astronomer, physicist and mathematician of his time, was condemned by the Catholic Church during the Roman Inquisition for “vehement suspicion of heresy” for his theory of heliocentrism (that the Earth and not the Sun was moving). In 1633 he was tried and convicted of heresy and spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest.
When Galileo passed away in 1642, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tomb of his father and erect a mausoleum in his honor. Those plans were halted after Pope Urban VIII protested. He was instead buried in a small room in the basilica.
In 1737, a monument was finally erected in honor of Galilei. But when his body was being moved to be reburied, three fingers and a tooth were stolen from his remains. One finger was quickly recovered while the other missing digits and tooth were found accidentally at an auction hundreds of years later in 2009.
Three fingers and a tooth have been on display at the Galileo Museum in Florence to celebrate the 400 year anniversary of his first observations of the skies. What is unusual is that body parts on display are usually reserved for saints and not scientists.
The Relic of St. Ludmila at St. George’s Basilica in the Prague Castle
The relic of St. Ludmila was supposedly the grandmother of Good King Wenceslaus. She had great influence over young Wenceslaus, who began ruling Bohemia at the gentle age of 8, which induced rage and jealousy in the young ruler’s mother, Drahomíra. On September 15, 921 AD, Drahomíra had St. Ludmila strangled with her own veil by two noblemen. Around the year 1100 AD, her remains were moved to St. George’s Basilica – and into a small glass window, tied with pink ribbons and surrounded by silk flowers.
Curious History: Unidentified Skeleton Appears on Beach After Storm
The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, two neighboring islands in the West Indies, recently suffered from Tropical Storm Rafael. After the storm subsided, this skeleton showed up on a heavily populated beach on Saint Kitts on Monday. The island nation has a population of 35,000 people of African and English descent and is located approximately 1300 miles southeast of Miami, Florida.
Curious History: Jewelled Skeletons, 1600s
‘Taken from the catacombs of Rome in the 17th century, the relics of twelve martyred saints were then attired in the regalia of the period before being interred in a remote church on the German/Czech border.’
(Source: retronaut.co)
Deadly Sins and The New Divinity
His propensity for the unusual has been a constant since childhood, a lifelong fascination that lent itself to his macabre art later in life. The grotesque to him, as it seemed, was beautiful. Kris Kuksi garners recognition and acclaim for the intricate sculptures that result from his unique and meticulous technique. A process that requires countless hours to assemble, collect, manipulate, cut, and re-shape thousands of individual parts, finally uniting them into an orchestral-like seamless cohesion that defines the historical rise and fall of civilization and envisions the possible future(s) of humanity. Each sculpture embodies the trademarks of his philosophy and practice, while serving as a testament to the multifaceted nature of perception – From timeless iconic references of Gods and Goddess, to challenging ideas of organized religion and morality, to the struggle to understand, and bend, the limits of mortality.
(Source: kuksi.com)
Vintage Ostrich (?) Skeleton
Rabbit Skull with bone, silver and rock crystal
(Source: metmuseum.org)
A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery.
Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, contain hands that are holding another hand. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts.
