The lamb's face was the least of their troubles

March 5, 2020 3:11 PM

Saint Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, home to the recently (somewhat disturbingly) restored Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (a.k.a. the Ghent Altarpiece), has a new claim to fame: nine of its churchyard walls are made of human bones.

Previously.

posted by Iris Gambol (12 comments total)

I had this Magic card!
posted by theodolite at 4:03 PM on March 5, 2020

Sedlec Ossuary says: hold my beer..
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:07 PM on March 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

With apologies to the Ramones:

I don't want to get married
In a human ossuary
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:14 PM on March 5, 2020 [5 favorites]

"And there are skulls involved as well" is a great line. "There is some degree of skullular involvement" would only be slightly better. I dunno; it doesn't seem that different from other ossuaries. Nothing bizzare; nothing grotesque.

And I've seen more humanoid faces on animals in religious art than that lamb.

(Flickr's facial recognition routinely identifies my cat's face as human.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:56 PM on March 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

My favourite part of the interview with the lead archaeologist:

JANIEK DE GRYSE: ...We knew that it was a very unique find. And it's always very nice to find something.

CO: Well, I wouldn't have expected you to use words like "excited" and "nice." I mean it sounds like pretty gruesome.

JANIEK DE GRYSE: Yes. But that depends on how you look at it. I can imagine that you would describe it with those words. But we look at it from a scientific point of view. And from a scientific point of view because it's a very unique find, we don't have any comparison in Belgium. So, yeah, it's always very exciting when you find something different. I don't think I will find this in another time in my life. So that's why I use the words "very exciting."

I must admit the other day when I first heard about this my reaction was "oh that's really interesting!" rather than "that's pretty gruesome." Perhaps I'm weird but, before my love of archaeology was beaten out of me in school (so many tedious pottery shards...), this is the kind of stuff I dreamed about finding.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:15 PM on March 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

I love that history was re-written by overpainting the altarpiece, and that they are recovering it with the restoration, so cool
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:35 PM on March 5, 2020

also I really have to go to sedlec ossuary someday
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:36 PM on March 5, 2020

I've only been to the ossuary in Evora, Portugal. That was creepy enough - no desire to see that again.

Ghent is having a great Van Eyck exhibition right now. I was planning to go there in the next month. It is also just an amazing town.
posted by vacapinta at 3:26 AM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

"And there are skulls involved as well" is a great line. "There is some degree of skullular involvement" would only be slightly better.

There’s a skullduggery joke buried here somewhere.
posted by nickmark at 5:30 AM on March 6, 2020 [3 favorites]

(Flickr's facial recognition routinely identifies my cat's face as human.)

Uh-oh! I've seen enough horror films and Freakies Friday to worry that I'd wake up one day and Flickr would only recognise me as feline. My cat would be out there in my place spending more money than it earned and embarrassing itself in social situations, while I'd be stuck at home sleeping 18 hours a day and pooping in a box.

Not sure which of us would be getting the raw deal there actually.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 12:21 PM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

... 3,000 dollars' worth of cat toys, and you can't return 'em, because they've got spit all over 'em...
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:25 PM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

“Hold my bier”, surely you meant?
posted by notoriety public at 5:32 PM on March 6, 2020 [3 favorites]