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a soft tongue can break hard bones
December 8, 2005 7:53 AM   Subscribe

Historical Anatomies. Bury the bones under forgotten tomes.
posted by The Jesse Helms (16 comments total)

This is excellent. I'd never seen the Persian pics. I love this one of the skeleton with the scythe. Is the scythe a symbol of death in Persian iconography? Anyone know?
posted by OmieWise at 7:59 AM on December 8, 2005



wow.
posted by fluffycreature at 8:34 AM on December 8, 2005


Yes, wonderful stuff! Bookmarked.
posted by carter at 8:37 AM on December 8, 2005


This is awesome. Thank you.
posted by ColdChef at 8:49 AM on December 8, 2005


Wound Man is having a bad day. (Thanks!)
posted by steef at 9:07 AM on December 8, 2005


Wow! These are quite stunning. Thank you for posting them.
posted by Lockjaw at 9:07 AM on December 8, 2005


Indeed. It's a great site. I did a 'survey' of all the major similar sites a little while ago.
SELF LINK
posted by peacay at 10:37 AM on December 8, 2005


[this is good]
posted by Rumple at 10:40 AM on December 8, 2005


I saw the links at peacay's site but neglected to follow them up: so thanks for the reminder TJH. I'm particularly glad to see such good scans of Della Porta's Porta De humana physiognomonia.
posted by misteraitch at 11:15 AM on December 8, 2005


what rumple said.

can't think of better reading before going to the South Street Seaport's Exhibit, Bodies.
posted by Busithoth at 12:00 PM on December 8, 2005


I saw a link to this site on happy palace the other day. These are some very interesting and awesome diagrams.
posted by jenovus at 1:07 PM on December 8, 2005


Very nice.

I can't keep thinking about what a cottage industry of grave robbing these anatomists must have spawned though.
posted by MasonDixon at 1:44 PM on December 8, 2005


OmieWise, the Persian esoteric cult of Mithras identifies the scythe with the moon. It would seem (perhaps not the finest link) that the reaping of souls via a scythe is a bit of a universal symbol. I'm not certain but it kind of makes sense. Many populations used the scythe for harvesting of course - not a long jump in symbolism to associate it with grim reaper I would have thought. And it would be easy to see it arising as a symbol independently in different populations.
posted by peacay at 3:57 PM on December 8, 2005


So very good! Thank you The Jesse Helms. Great post.
posted by LeeJay at 4:14 PM on December 8, 2005


Great post.
posted by sellout at 5:14 PM on December 8, 2005


Double Post.
posted by dgaicun at 3:50 AM on December 17, 2005


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