The Copper Coin

tuesday-johnson: ca. 1864, [post mortem portrait of two children], Squyer Studio via Looking at Death, Barbara Norfleet

tuesday-johnson:

ca. 1864, [post mortem portrait of two children], Squyer Studio

via Looking at Death, Barbara Norfleet

(via theossuary)

theossuary: This story is no longer news, but still fascinating. Check out this slideshow on Discovery News about the pyramid-shaped pile of bodies—nearly 300 total, about 100 of them naturally mummified—found in a church crypt in the mountain town of Roccapelago, Italy.  The History Blog also has an article about it: The unusual preservation was due to a confluence of the consistently cold temperature and two slots in the church wall that kept the air constantly circulating. The vaulted crypt — used as an armory when the church was a fortress in the Middle Ages — was first used for traditional inhumation under ground, but the practice later changed to corpses being dropped from a trap door in the church. Image: Photograph by Paolo Terzi/SBAER, via the History Blog.

theossuary:

This story is no longer news, but still fascinating.

Check out this slideshow on Discovery News about the pyramid-shaped pile of bodies—nearly 300 total, about 100 of them naturally mummified—found in a church crypt in the mountain town of Roccapelago, Italy. 

The History Blog also has an article about it:

The unusual preservation was due to a confluence of the consistently cold temperature and two slots in the church wall that kept the air constantly circulating. The vaulted crypt — used as an armory when the church was a fortress in the Middle Ages — was first used for traditional inhumation under ground, but the practice later changed to corpses being dropped from a trap door in the church.

Image: Photograph by Paolo Terzi/SBAER, via the History Blog.

oldowan: Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds technique applied to animals Controversial anatomist returns to UK with new show based on plastination process – Animal Inside Out A decade ago, Gunther von Hagens brought his ghoulish travelling show of preserved humans, Body Worlds, to the UK. Now he’s back, this time with a zoo’s-worth of animals that have undergone the same plastination technique: extracting water and fatty tissues from the body and replacing them with polymers to stop its decomposition. Muscle, bone and organs are exposed, and skin flayed open to show the inner workings of these creatures’ bodies. This blue shark is one of the few specimens that hasn’t been dissected; its skin has been stripped off to reveal the blood vessels underneath. With his skeletal, bloodless face, black fedora and horror-film name, von Hagens has always cultivated a macabre persona: part Dr Frankenstein and part Leonardo da Vinci, he revelled in the controversy and moral outrage his original show attracted. Governments in almost every country it visited attempted last-ditch legal challenges; religious groups questioned its morals.

oldowan:

Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds technique applied to animals

Controversial anatomist returns to UK with new show based on plastination process – Animal Inside Out

A decade ago, Gunther von Hagens brought his ghoulish travelling show of preserved humans, Body Worlds, to the UK. Now he’s back, this time with a zoo’s-worth of animals that have undergone the same plastination technique: extracting water and fatty tissues from the body and replacing them with polymers to stop its decomposition.

Muscle, bone and organs are exposed, and skin flayed open to show the inner workings of these creatures’ bodies. This blue shark is one of the few specimens that hasn’t been dissected; its skin has been stripped off to reveal the blood vessels underneath.

With his skeletal, bloodless face, black fedora and horror-film name, von Hagens has always cultivated a macabre persona: part Dr Frankenstein and part Leonardo da Vinci, he revelled in the controversy and moral outrage his original show attracted. Governments in almost every country it visited attempted last-ditch legal challenges; religious groups questioned its morals.

chainedtothetruth: Gunther Von Hagens ‘Jesus’ I found this amazing tonight, the amount of time and patience in creating this piece was very impressive. I find it an astonishing piece of art.

chainedtothetruth:

Gunther Von Hagens ‘Jesus’ I found this amazing tonight, the amount of time and patience in creating this piece was very impressive. I find it an astonishing piece of art.

life: The caption that accompanied this image when it appeared in the May 7, 1945, issue of LIFE: “Deformed by malnutrition, a Buchenwald prisoner leans against his bunk after trying to walk. Like other imprisoned slave laborers, he worked in a Nazi factory until too feeble.” See more here. (Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

life:

The caption that accompanied this image when it appeared in the May 7, 1945, issue of LIFE: “Deformed by malnutrition, a Buchenwald prisoner leans against his bunk after trying to walk. Like other imprisoned slave laborers, he worked in a Nazi factory until too feeble.”

See more here.

(Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)