#oddities
Happy lupercalia all
Shop update! Just listed a couple of neat new curiosity collections and knocked a few bucks off everything else.
ShadyufoStudios on Etsy!
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Just listed this curiosity collection in a vintage Kodak film tin HERE in my Etsy shop! It includes teeth, fossils, gemstones, a crazy cool barnacle, & more!
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Just listed a few rad new goodies HERE in my Etsy shop! Curiosity collection, horns, emu egg, partial guinea fowl skeleton, and more!
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These super cute little mini curiosity collections in vintage watch parts tins are currently available HERE in my Etsy shop!
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The Sisterhood of the skulls.
Excerpt from Morbid Anatomys blogspot (link below) on The Fontanelle, The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead.
“In this vast underground ossuary you will find, among the usual piles of bones, tiny stuctures–some with text engraved, others draped in rosaries and embellished with prayer cards–enshrining chosen skeletal bits. To the uninitiated, their meanings are unclear.One invaluable source in trying to decipher the meaning here was the work of author/scholar/photographer Paul Koudounaris of Empire of Death fame; he explains the cult thusly in his Fortean Times article “Sisterhood of the Skulls” (excerpted below; click here to read article in its entirety):
“…One of [Naples’] greatest enigmas was a strange cult, composed almost exclusively of elderly women who communed with the dead, lavishing their attention on, and even making offerings to, human skulls.
The cult was centred on a cemetery known as the Fontanelle… A curious cult dedicated to the remains began to evolve around the site, especially after 1872. In that year, Father Gaetano Barbati had large deposits of bones exhumed, and the skulls were cleaned and placed on racks or in troughs, where they took on the role of devotional items for this death-obsessed group. There was no formal organisation to this cult, but it rapidly grew popular with older women, especially widows or those with little or no family. They claimed to receive messages from the deceased in their dreams, and would then “adopt” whichever skull they believed had belonged to the spirit that had contacted them, becoming in effect a kind of caretaker of not just the remains but also the soul of the dead person. They would clean and care for their skulls, even constructing engraved marble shrines for them. These boxes might enclose a single skull, or multiples if the same person adopted more than one. “ ”
Read the whole thing here: bit.ly/WAJDsO
fontanelle007.jpgvon Morbid Anatomy
Über Flickr:
Cimitero delle Fontanelle and “The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead” or “The Neapolitan Skull Cult” of Naples, Italy;
The Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn, New York by Morbid Anatomy (posted on Flickr)
viα sixpenceee: Bejeweling Skeleton
The ultimate treatment for human remains is bejeweling the entire skeleton. This was popular during the 17th and 18th centuries in parts of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and remains of people thought to be holy would be treated in this way. This particular skeleton, in Waldsassen, Germany, was discovered in the Roman catacombs and believed to be that of a martyr — he was sent to Germany, covered in jewels, and set into an altar to inspire faith. (Source)
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Museum of Anatomical Waxes “Luigi Cattezneo” (Museo Delle Cere Anatomiche “Luigi Cattaneo”): Bologna, Italy Large-scale anatomical model of the eye
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cowrie unsheathed
chestnut cowrie snail (Cypraea spadicea)
Los Angeles county CA Dec. 2015
flatworm ripplescape
Prostheceraeus belliostriatus
Los Angeles county CA Oct. 2015 / ZS40 /
food fought
a temporarily abandoned and tasty cabezon(Scorpaenichthys marmoratus) awaits retrieval in the intertidal zone
Los Angeles county CA Nov. 2015 / T3i /
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saturn devouring his son
Navanax inermis cannibalizes a smaller relative
Los Angeles county CA Nov 2015
Want an explanation? More info on my YouTube-click the link:
