Western curators have become desperate to distance themselves from the colonial period during which these objects were acquired. By contrast, there are few people in Britain who feel so strongly about scores of impoverished Londoners pulled from their shallow graves in the dead of night.
If the impoverished Londoners had been anything other than white, we would be inundated with articles about how vile the practice was, and demanding reparation.
The Christian religion does not require preservation of the original Corpse for resurrection. Many people are unclear about this question. We get a fresh angelic body at resurrection. Otherwise, God would not allow the believers to have their bodies destroyed by fire or decay. It all comes down to the nature of a soul. Is it a quantum field that attaches itself to a new body or a backup disk of a person’s memories that is played back into a fresh body thinking itself to be the original person.
The Christian religion does not require preservation of the original Corpse for resurrection. Many people are unclear about this question. We get a fresh angelic body at resurrection. Otherwise, God would not allow the believers to have their bodies destroyed by fire or decay. It all comes down to the nature of a soul. Is it a quantum field that attaches itself to a new body or a backup disk of a person’s memories that is played back into a fresh body thinking itself to be the original person.
Simon Neale
10 months ago
Western curators have become desperate to distance themselves from the colonial period during which these objects were acquired. By contrast, there are few people in Britain who feel so strongly about scores of impoverished Londoners pulled from their shallow graves in the dead of night.
If the impoverished Londoners had been anything other than white, we would be inundated with articles about how vile the practice was, and demanding reparation.
Katharine Eyre
10 months ago
Such an interesting topic!
Back in 2012, I went to Stockholm and visited the stupendous Wasa museum. Besides that awe-inspiring folly of a ship, the exhibition also contains the preserved remains of those who went down with it all those years ago. They are kind of mummified (is that still what you call it if they were preserved under water?) and are still wearing the clothes they had on that day.
As I remember, the corpses are displayed in glass cases on ground level, so it’s possible to peer over them as you would be able to lean over someone in bed. Children were pressing their snotty little noses up against the glass.
Instinctively, I was appalled by this and wondered how it was that the Swedes – a seemingly highly civilised bunch – thought this was a good idea. It seemed like such an indignity.
Then I remembered all the times I’ve looked at Egyptian mummies (for example in the Met in NYC) without being bothered and wondered why the Wasa bodies made me so uncomfortable.
The author is right: we only make it an issue if we want to. Our immediate emotional responses have no rhyme or reason to them and do not stand up to rational scrutiny.
Not sure if the Swedes “civilisation” is more than a veneer. From what i am told by Swedes and other nationalities who live/work there: The state dictates what you can name your child, marijuana users are treated as mentally ill like gays in the USSR. Attitudes to race are on a par with Britain in the 1950s and the police are as brutal and corrupt as present day Central America – which is why criminal gangs are able to operate with impunity in the larger cities. Still despite this anecdotal evidence they did call Covid right. So maybe they’re right on the other issues – i am deeply sceptical of Anglo societies that laud marijuana whilst wanting to make tobacco illegal. IMO they are as bad as each other for cancer/emphysema etc but tobacco doesn’t seem to affect mental health apart from near term withdrawal.
Not sure if the Swedes “civilisation” is more than a veneer. From what i am told by Swedes and other nationalities who live/work there: The state dictates what you can name your child, marijuana users are treated as mentally ill like gays in the USSR. Attitudes to race are on a par with Britain in the 1950s and the police are as brutal and corrupt as present day Central America – which is why criminal gangs are able to operate with impunity in the larger cities. Still despite this anecdotal evidence they did call Covid right. So maybe they’re right on the other issues – i am deeply sceptical of Anglo societies that laud marijuana whilst wanting to make tobacco illegal. IMO they are as bad as each other for cancer/emphysema etc but tobacco doesn’t seem to affect mental health apart from near term withdrawal.
Last edited 10 months ago by mike otter
Katharine Eyre
10 months ago
Such an interesting topic!
Back in 2012, I went to Stockholm and visited the stupendous Wasa museum. Besides that awe-inspiring folly of a ship, the exhibition also contains the preserved remains of those who went down with it all those years ago. They are kind of mummified (is that still what you call it if they were preserved under water?) and are still wearing the clothes they had on that day.
As I remember, the corpses are displayed in glass cases on ground level, so it’s possible to peer over them as you would be able to lean over someone in bed. Children were pressing their snotty little noses up against the glass.
Instinctively, I was appalled by this and wondered how it was that the Swedes – a seemingly highly civilised bunch – thought this was a good idea. It seemed like such an indignity.
Then I remembered all the times I’ve looked at Egyptian mummies (for example in the Met in NYC) without being bothered and wondered why the Wasa bodies made me so uncomfortable.
The author is right: we only make it an issue if we want to. Our immediate emotional responses have no rhyme or reason to them and do not stand up to rational scrutiny.
Peta Seel
10 months ago
Illegally obtaining bodies for dissection is nothing new. It is believed that Michaelangelo did it regularly which explains the anatomical perfection of his sculptures.
On a more personal level, I visited the Cairo museum some years back including, of course, the hall of mummies. I was fascinated, but it did cross my mind to think what these people, once so powerful and literally considered to be deities, would have thought if they had known that one day their mortal remains which they had gone to so much trouble to keep sacrosanct, would be displayed in glass boxes for tourists to gawp at. My companion had the same thoughts but unlike me, he couldn’t get out of the hall fast enough – it really upset him.
Yes of course. I had heard about Michaelangelo dissecting cadavers for study. I also remembered the Victorian fashion for commissioning family portraits in the form of Daguerrotypes that included deceased family members, usually children alongside the living. But they did that out of respect for the dead and belief in resurrection I assume.
I have often thought the same thing about those Pharoahs.
Yes of course. I had heard about Michaelangelo dissecting cadavers for study. I also remembered the Victorian fashion for commissioning family portraits in the form of Daguerrotypes that included deceased family members, usually children alongside the living. But they did that out of respect for the dead and belief in resurrection I assume.
I have often thought the same thing about those Pharoahs.
Peta Seel
10 months ago
Illegally obtaining bodies for dissection is nothing new. It is believed that Michaelangelo did it regularly which explains the anatomical perfection of his sculptures.
On a more personal level, I visited the Cairo museum some years back including, of course, the hall of mummies. I was fascinated, but it did cross my mind to think what these people, once so powerful and literally considered to be deities, would have thought if they had known that one day their mortal remains which they had gone to so much trouble to keep sacrosanct, would be displayed in glass boxes for tourists to gawp at. My companion had the same thoughts but unlike me, he couldn’t get out of the hall fast enough – it really upset him.
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
The UK Murder Act of 1751 clearly stipulated that “in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried”.
The alternative was either Public dissection or hanging in chains.
An early, somewhat high profile example was the hanging and subsequent dissection of Lawrence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers in 1760.
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
The UK Murder Act of 1751 clearly stipulated that “in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried”.
The alternative was either Public dissection or hanging in chains.
An early, somewhat high profile example was the hanging and subsequent dissection of Lawrence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers in 1760.
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Anyone remember Gunther von Hagens and his exhibition in Whitechapel a few years ago?
Yes! I couldn’t bring myself to go to it. I think it is interesting to reflect on how in the West our relationship to the body has changed over time. I suppose it must have started with Decartes. Now we have transhumanists who refer to their bodies as ‘meat suits’.
Yes! I couldn’t bring myself to go to it. I think it is interesting to reflect on how in the West our relationship to the body has changed over time. I suppose it must have started with Decartes. Now we have transhumanists who refer to their bodies as ‘meat suits’.
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Anyone remember Gunther von Hagens and his exhibition in Whitechapel a few years ago?
V Solar
10 months ago
The Royal Academy School used to keep plaster casts of flayed corpses some of which were nailed to crosses so that students could make studies of them. Over the years therefore many artists will have produced artworks, including religious paintings and scuptures would have benefitted from this practice. These corpses were said to have belonged to men taken from the gallows.
Oh and I just remembered …Damian Hirst’s self-portrait with a severed head which he arranged to have taken serreptitiously (during the coffee break I think) in a dissection class. Also there was a performance artist call Rick Gibson in the 80s who caused outrage by exhibiting a pair of earrings he’d made out of freeze dried foetuses.
Those models are still on display in the corridor linking the Piccadilly and Burlington Street sides of the RA.
V Solar
10 months ago
The Royal Academy School used to keep plaster casts of flayed corpses some of which were nailed to crosses so that students could make studies of them. Over the years therefore many artists will have produced artworks, including religious paintings and scuptures would have benefitted from this practice. These corpses were said to have belonged to men taken from the gallows.
Oh and I just remembered …Damian Hirst’s self-portrait with a severed head which he arranged to have taken serreptitiously (during the coffee break I think) in a dissection class. Also there was a performance artist call Rick Gibson in the 80s who caused outrage by exhibiting a pair of earrings he’d made out of freeze dried foetuses.
Last edited 10 months ago by V Solar
Rob Butler
10 months ago
I attended Gunther Von Hagens exhibition of plastinated humans in Los Vegas perhaps 15years ago. Nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle: one that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Victorian gothic. I came away feeling unclean. Apparently all the “exhibits” had consented to their bodies being put on display. I’m not so sure that this was “informed” consent. But I think Von Hagens made a lot of cash.
‘Unclean’, that’s a good way of putting it, I think I would felt the same. I always wondered what sort of person would consent to something like that, but maybe as you imply the consent was not quite what it seemed.
I vaguely remember news reports about stolen cadavers (Russian and maybe Chinese).
Alison Wren
10 months ago
I also remember being shocked by bodies preserved in peat bogs, uncovered by the slicing of peat cutter machines. So old and yet perfectly preserved very macabre. I think maybe we should have trigger warnings so the very sensitive can avoid.
William Brand
2 months ago
The Irish giant clearly refused consent to display and dissection. He needs to receive the religious burial he requested. As for the executed criminals their display and posthumous humiliation was part of their punishment as an example to others. Egyptian mummies need to receive plastination and fresh tombs and grave goods as per their religion. Their religion required mumification. Do not assume that it was false. Give them what they wanted.
If the impoverished Londoners had been anything other than white, we would be inundated with articles about how vile the practice was, and demanding reparation.
The Christian religion does not require preservation of the original Corpse for resurrection. Many people are unclear about this question. We get a fresh angelic body at resurrection. Otherwise, God would not allow the believers to have their bodies destroyed by fire or decay. It all comes down to the nature of a soul. Is it a quantum field that attaches itself to a new body or a backup disk of a person’s memories that is played back into a fresh body thinking itself to be the original person.
The Christian religion does not require preservation of the original Corpse for resurrection. Many people are unclear about this question. We get a fresh angelic body at resurrection. Otherwise, God would not allow the believers to have their bodies destroyed by fire or decay. It all comes down to the nature of a soul. Is it a quantum field that attaches itself to a new body or a backup disk of a person’s memories that is played back into a fresh body thinking itself to be the original person.
If the impoverished Londoners had been anything other than white, we would be inundated with articles about how vile the practice was, and demanding reparation.
Such an interesting topic!
Back in 2012, I went to Stockholm and visited the stupendous Wasa museum. Besides that awe-inspiring folly of a ship, the exhibition also contains the preserved remains of those who went down with it all those years ago. They are kind of mummified (is that still what you call it if they were preserved under water?) and are still wearing the clothes they had on that day.
As I remember, the corpses are displayed in glass cases on ground level, so it’s possible to peer over them as you would be able to lean over someone in bed. Children were pressing their snotty little noses up against the glass.
Instinctively, I was appalled by this and wondered how it was that the Swedes – a seemingly highly civilised bunch – thought this was a good idea. It seemed like such an indignity.
Then I remembered all the times I’ve looked at Egyptian mummies (for example in the Met in NYC) without being bothered and wondered why the Wasa bodies made me so uncomfortable.
The author is right: we only make it an issue if we want to. Our immediate emotional responses have no rhyme or reason to them and do not stand up to rational scrutiny.
Not sure if the Swedes “civilisation” is more than a veneer. From what i am told by Swedes and other nationalities who live/work there: The state dictates what you can name your child, marijuana users are treated as mentally ill like gays in the USSR. Attitudes to race are on a par with Britain in the 1950s and the police are as brutal and corrupt as present day Central America – which is why criminal gangs are able to operate with impunity in the larger cities. Still despite this anecdotal evidence they did call Covid right. So maybe they’re right on the other issues – i am deeply sceptical of Anglo societies that laud marijuana whilst wanting to make tobacco illegal. IMO they are as bad as each other for cancer/emphysema etc but tobacco doesn’t seem to affect mental health apart from near term withdrawal.
Not sure if the Swedes “civilisation” is more than a veneer. From what i am told by Swedes and other nationalities who live/work there: The state dictates what you can name your child, marijuana users are treated as mentally ill like gays in the USSR. Attitudes to race are on a par with Britain in the 1950s and the police are as brutal and corrupt as present day Central America – which is why criminal gangs are able to operate with impunity in the larger cities. Still despite this anecdotal evidence they did call Covid right. So maybe they’re right on the other issues – i am deeply sceptical of Anglo societies that laud marijuana whilst wanting to make tobacco illegal. IMO they are as bad as each other for cancer/emphysema etc but tobacco doesn’t seem to affect mental health apart from near term withdrawal.
Such an interesting topic!
Back in 2012, I went to Stockholm and visited the stupendous Wasa museum. Besides that awe-inspiring folly of a ship, the exhibition also contains the preserved remains of those who went down with it all those years ago. They are kind of mummified (is that still what you call it if they were preserved under water?) and are still wearing the clothes they had on that day.
As I remember, the corpses are displayed in glass cases on ground level, so it’s possible to peer over them as you would be able to lean over someone in bed. Children were pressing their snotty little noses up against the glass.
Instinctively, I was appalled by this and wondered how it was that the Swedes – a seemingly highly civilised bunch – thought this was a good idea. It seemed like such an indignity.
Then I remembered all the times I’ve looked at Egyptian mummies (for example in the Met in NYC) without being bothered and wondered why the Wasa bodies made me so uncomfortable.
The author is right: we only make it an issue if we want to. Our immediate emotional responses have no rhyme or reason to them and do not stand up to rational scrutiny.
Illegally obtaining bodies for dissection is nothing new. It is believed that Michaelangelo did it regularly which explains the anatomical perfection of his sculptures.
On a more personal level, I visited the Cairo museum some years back including, of course, the hall of mummies. I was fascinated, but it did cross my mind to think what these people, once so powerful and literally considered to be deities, would have thought if they had known that one day their mortal remains which they had gone to so much trouble to keep sacrosanct, would be displayed in glass boxes for tourists to gawp at. My companion had the same thoughts but unlike me, he couldn’t get out of the hall fast enough – it really upset him.
Yes of course. I had heard about Michaelangelo dissecting cadavers for study. I also remembered the Victorian fashion for commissioning family portraits in the form of Daguerrotypes that included deceased family members, usually children alongside the living. But they did that out of respect for the dead and belief in resurrection I assume.
I have often thought the same thing about those Pharoahs.
Yes of course. I had heard about Michaelangelo dissecting cadavers for study. I also remembered the Victorian fashion for commissioning family portraits in the form of Daguerrotypes that included deceased family members, usually children alongside the living. But they did that out of respect for the dead and belief in resurrection I assume.
I have often thought the same thing about those Pharoahs.
Illegally obtaining bodies for dissection is nothing new. It is believed that Michaelangelo did it regularly which explains the anatomical perfection of his sculptures.
On a more personal level, I visited the Cairo museum some years back including, of course, the hall of mummies. I was fascinated, but it did cross my mind to think what these people, once so powerful and literally considered to be deities, would have thought if they had known that one day their mortal remains which they had gone to so much trouble to keep sacrosanct, would be displayed in glass boxes for tourists to gawp at. My companion had the same thoughts but unlike me, he couldn’t get out of the hall fast enough – it really upset him.
The UK Murder Act of 1751 clearly stipulated that “in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried”.
The alternative was either Public dissection or hanging in chains.
An early, somewhat high profile example was the hanging and subsequent dissection of Lawrence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers in 1760.
The UK Murder Act of 1751 clearly stipulated that “in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried”.
The alternative was either Public dissection or hanging in chains.
An early, somewhat high profile example was the hanging and subsequent dissection of Lawrence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers in 1760.
Anyone remember Gunther von Hagens and his exhibition in Whitechapel a few years ago?
Yes! I couldn’t bring myself to go to it. I think it is interesting to reflect on how in the West our relationship to the body has changed over time. I suppose it must have started with Decartes. Now we have transhumanists who refer to their bodies as ‘meat suits’.
Girolamo Savonarola is reputed to have described women as “pieces of meat with eyes “.
OMG! How horrible. Who was he?
A 15th Italian religious ‘nutter’ who briefly sized power in Florence.
He was soon overthrown and burnt at the stake.
A 15th Italian religious ‘nutter’ who briefly sized power in Florence.
He was soon overthrown and burnt at the stake.
Okay just looked him up. An Italian preacher. ‘Pieces of meat with eyes!!!’ Ugh!
OMG! How horrible. Who was he?
Okay just looked him up. An Italian preacher. ‘Pieces of meat with eyes!!!’ Ugh!
Girolamo Savonarola is reputed to have described women as “pieces of meat with eyes “.
Yes! I couldn’t bring myself to go to it. I think it is interesting to reflect on how in the West our relationship to the body has changed over time. I suppose it must have started with Decartes. Now we have transhumanists who refer to their bodies as ‘meat suits’.
Anyone remember Gunther von Hagens and his exhibition in Whitechapel a few years ago?
The Royal Academy School used to keep plaster casts of flayed corpses some of which were nailed to crosses so that students could make studies of them. Over the years therefore many artists will have produced artworks, including religious paintings and scuptures would have benefitted from this practice. These corpses were said to have belonged to men taken from the gallows.
Oh and I just remembered …Damian Hirst’s self-portrait with a severed head which he arranged to have taken serreptitiously (during the coffee break I think) in a dissection class. Also there was a performance artist call Rick Gibson in the 80s who caused outrage by exhibiting a pair of earrings he’d made out of freeze dried foetuses.
Those models are still on display in the corridor linking the Piccadilly and Burlington Street sides of the RA.
Are they? I thought they might have got rid of them. Thanks for filling me in.
Are they? I thought they might have got rid of them. Thanks for filling me in.
Those models are still on display in the corridor linking the Piccadilly and Burlington Street sides of the RA.
The Royal Academy School used to keep plaster casts of flayed corpses some of which were nailed to crosses so that students could make studies of them. Over the years therefore many artists will have produced artworks, including religious paintings and scuptures would have benefitted from this practice. These corpses were said to have belonged to men taken from the gallows.
Oh and I just remembered …Damian Hirst’s self-portrait with a severed head which he arranged to have taken serreptitiously (during the coffee break I think) in a dissection class. Also there was a performance artist call Rick Gibson in the 80s who caused outrage by exhibiting a pair of earrings he’d made out of freeze dried foetuses.
I attended Gunther Von Hagens exhibition of plastinated humans in Los Vegas perhaps 15years ago. Nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle: one that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Victorian gothic. I came away feeling unclean. Apparently all the “exhibits” had consented to their bodies being put on display. I’m not so sure that this was “informed” consent. But I think Von Hagens made a lot of cash.
‘Unclean’, that’s a good way of putting it, I think I would felt the same. I always wondered what sort of person would consent to something like that, but maybe as you imply the consent was not quite what it seemed.
I vaguely remember news reports about stolen cadavers (Russian and maybe Chinese).
I also remember being shocked by bodies preserved in peat bogs, uncovered by the slicing of peat cutter machines. So old and yet perfectly preserved very macabre. I think maybe we should have trigger warnings so the very sensitive can avoid.
The Irish giant clearly refused consent to display and dissection. He needs to receive the religious burial he requested. As for the executed criminals their display and posthumous humiliation was part of their punishment as an example to others. Egyptian mummies need to receive plastination and fresh tombs and grave goods as per their religion. Their religion required mumification. Do not assume that it was false. Give them what they wanted.