Stealing skulls from the grave, with science in mind

Stealing skulls from the grave, with science in mind

Skull-stealing was once a macabre but a well-intended practice among men of science.

In science, as in economics, demand determines value. Anything can seem valuable if enough scientists want it. This entertaining and illuminating book chronicles a century-long period in which the evolution of a variety of scientific and pseudo-scientific endeavors -- phrenology, psychiatry, anatomy and anthropology, to name a few -- drove up the demand for the skulls of dead geniuses and transformed these remains into priceless relics. As a result, people with the noblest intentions disturbed graves to steal the skulls of such luminaries as Franz Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Francisco Goya, Alexander Pope, Friedrich Schiller and Emanuel Swedenborg.

Colin Dickey, who previously co-edited an anthology of essays on the subject of failure, explores this macabre episode of history armed with formidable research skills and the ability to tell his story with the gusto it deserves. With frequent digressions, he follows the travels of a half-dozen skulls of famous men as they are heisted from cemeteries to the cupboards of scientists and enthusiasts of theories of questionable scientific merit. Finally, he describes the eventual repatriation of the skulls -- sometimes a century or more after their theft -- to the countries, crypts and skeletons from which they originated.

Along the way, he sheds light on the development of cranioscopy, Franz Joseph Gall's theory that human character is inherent at birth and appears in the size of specific regions of the brain and skull. Gall's disciple, Johann Spurzheim, morphed these ideas into the skull bump-reading techniques of phrenology. A phrenologist could read the skulls of brilliant men much as a geologist interprets strata of the Earth. "Why hide such a worthy skull out of the sight of humankind when it could be proudly displayed, a testament for centuries to come?" Dickey writes, explaining that skull stealers did not consider themselves vandals.

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/64455202.html?elr=KArksD:aDyaEP:kD:aU1ccmiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

to use as bongs, I suppose. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6131106

on the subject is called "Skull Wars". It's a textbook in one of my Anthropology classes.