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We Dig Skulls

Page 25 of 27

Stories

  1. No. 021

    Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven

    Grove Street Cemetery, chartered in 1797, holds Eli Whitney, Noah Webster and 14 Yale presidents. Its 1845 Egyptian gate reads The Dead Shall Be Raised. Hours too.

  2. No. 020

    Damien Hirst's Diamond Skull

    For the Love of God (2007) is Damien Hirst's platinum skull with 8,601 diamonds and real teeth. What it cost, the disputed £50 million sale, who owns it and what it means.

  3. No. 019

    Phineas Gage's Skull

    In 1848 an iron rod passed through Phineas Gage's head and he lived. What happened, how his personality changed, what his skull shows and where it is today.

  4. No. 018

    Trepanation

    Trepanation is the ancient practice of opening the skull. Why people did it, how it was done, the oldest examples and the survival rates from healed bone.

  5. No. 017

    Phrenology Heads and Skulls

    A phrenology head is a numbered teaching bust from a nineteenth-century theory of reading character from the skull. What the numbers mean, who made them and why it faded.

  6. No. 016

    What Happened to Oliver Cromwell's Head? From a Spike to a Secret Grave

    Cromwell's body was exhumed in 1661 and his head set above Westminster Hall. How it passed from owner to owner, the 1934 study and its 1960 burial at Sidney Sussex College.

  7. No. 015

    What Happened to Mozart's Skull? The Salzburg Skull and the DNA Mystery

    A skull attributed to Mozart is held by the Mozarteum in Salzburg. How it got there, why his grave was unmarked, what the 2006 DNA tests showed, and Haydn's skull.

  8. No. 014

    Saint Valentine's Skull

    A flower-crowned skull in Rome's Santa Maria in Cosmedin is venerated as Saint Valentine's. Learn its story, who Valentine was, and where else his relics are kept.

  9. No. 013

    Skull Cups

    Skull cups have a long documented history, from Gough's Cave 14,700 years ago to Scythian cups, the Tibetan kapala and Lord Byron's cup at Newstead Abbey.