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From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, here's a 16th century memento mori rosary carved out of ivory featuring man on one side and skeleton on the other: Link - via The Hairpin
Skull Speaker – $17.95
Are you looking for a portable speaker that has the ability to scare away small children? You need the black Skull Speaker with light up red eyes from the NeatoShop. This ghoulish speaker is perfect for listening to funky tunes and frightening wee ones.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Mobile Phones & Tablet Gadgets.
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Ryan Matthew Cohn is an artist, antique collector, blogger, and a buyer for the store Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City. He makes art objects from human and animal bones. Read about Cohn’s collection and creations, and see some clips of his appearances on the TV show Oddities at Collector’s Weekly. Link
Doomed Skull Shot Glass – $9.95
Don’t be doomed to a life of drinking out of pedestrian glassware. Get the Doomed Skull Shot Glass from the NeatoShop. This gruesome glass was inspired by the Mayan Crystal Skull of Doom.
The Doomed Skull Shot Glass is to die for. Make sure to buy a spare glass. You will want to have one of these glasses handy when it’s time to ring in December 21, 2012.
Be sure to check out all the fantastic Cocktail & Barware from the NeatoShop.
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Skull of Yorick – $12.95
Have you been dieing to reenact your favorite scene from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet? You need the Skull of Yorick from the NeatoShop. This resin skull will save you the trouble and legal ramifications of having a gravedigger exhume some other deceased court jester for you.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Shakespeare or Halloween items.
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Crafty Lady Abby went to a zombie wedding in full skull makeup. It turned out so well that she posted the makeup process as a tutorial for you. You might not have a wedding this would be appropriate for, but a Halloween party would be the perfect place to show off your skull skills! Link -via Laughing Squid
Photo Credit: Maurice Mbikayi
South African artist Maurice Mbikayi calls his keyboard skulls “anti-social networks” and says that the work “symbolizes the internet addiction and consequences that occur nowadays. It also emphasizes the negative effects of being reliant to the new technology and internet. Sadly the more we experience it, the more we are reliant to it.” I do think that these are a great conversation piece–if you’re looking at them in person! Check out his other mixed-media artwork on his website and the skulls themselves on Laughing Squid.
Photo: Tessa Angus
What do you do if you've got your hands on thousands of mouse skulls
(rescued from owl excrements vomit, no less)? Well, taxidermy artist Alastair
Mackie has got the elegant solution. Izzy Elstob of Don't Panic writes:
Downstairs again, Mackie uses the repetition of form to create the series Untitled (Sphere). These are four perfect spheres within thick-set display bell jars, apparently floating upon their plinths. I forgot to mention that these perfect spheres are meticulously composed of mouse skulls. I forgot to mention that these mouse skulls are meticulously extracted from owl shit. What you have is a skeletal ball of precise dimensions, the layers of the ball packed with equidistantly placed skulls of increasing or diminishing size dependent on whether the convex is moving towards or away from the poles.
Link - via Archie McPhee's Endless Geyser of Awesome
Skull Wreath – $49.95
Flower wreaths just not your thing? You need the Skull Wreath from the NeatoShop. The Skull Wreath is perfect for adding just a touch of gruesome charm to your cozy pirate lair. This handmade decoration screams solicitors beware!
Be sure to check out all the frighteningly fabulous Home & Garden and Pirate items available at the NeatoShop.
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Artist/Designer Kelly Lamb’s hanging light fixture is creepily elegant. It appears to be made of tiny lightbulbs hung from the ceiling on filaments and arranged in the shape of a human skull although there are no details provided at the artist’s site. This skeletal lighting would fit well with a goth interior.
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In 1809, the Ottoman Empire wanted to warn the Serbian people not to attempt any more foolish rebellion*, so it created this macabre monument:
Serbian forces dug new trenches under the local command of the Duke, Stevan Sindjelic. Since there was such a great defensive strategy
between the Serbian leaders, Sinjelic found himself unprepared. He realized the situation was hopeless, so he blew up the ammunition store with his own pistol.Afterwards, Turkish commander, Hurshid Pasha, ordered the decapitation of all the Serbian bodies, even erecting a monument using the heads as building material. The tower itself was 10 feet high, contained 952 skulls, and was topped with the head of Sindjalic himself.
During the later part of the 19th century, the skulls were removed, both as macabre souvenirs of battle and proper burials. In 1892, there were only 50 left on the tower and a chapel was built over top to preserve what little remained.
Link | More at Atlas Obscura and Wikipedia (Photo: Wikimedia/Freerspska.org)
*note: the warning didn’t exactly work. A few years later in 1815, Serbia rebelled again and that time, achieved semi- and then full-independence.
Some people see the Virgin Mary, some people see maps, others see skulls in everything. (Via AnOther Mag. Photo provenance unknown – if you know the originator, please let me know so we can credit).
You know what would be more awesome than drinking beer? Drinking beer out of the Skull Stein from the NeatoShop.
That’s right – it’s a glass mug shaped like a grinning skull (the handle is shaped like bones).
Link | More fun and unusual Mugs from the NeatoShop
Skull Stein – $9.95
Don’t drink beer out of a boring ol’ beer stein – show ‘em your deadly serious about your love for your favorite brew with this Skull Stein from the NeatoShop!
Link | More fun and unusual Glassware and Drinkware
Nomskulls Skull Cupcake Mold – $11.95
Om nom nom nom … who doesn’t like yummy brain cupcake? Make your own ghoulish cupcakes with the Nomskulls Skull Cupcake Mold from the NeatoShop. Nomskulls are ready to fill with your favorite grey batter (get it?) and bake into perfect cupcake craniums. One bite and you’ll be head over heels, because there’s no doubt about it – this skull bone’s connected to the YUM bone!
Link | More Cupcake Items | More Fun Party Supplies
When you produce a skull every day, what are you going to do for Halloween? Noah Scalin at Skull-s-Day carved a pumpkin and found the skull inside! Link -via The Daily What
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When Noah Scanlin of Skull-A-Day visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, he was given the freedom to play around with some brain slices encased in acrylic that the museum had just acquired.
So what did he do? You guessed it:
However, to my delight they had just acquired a collection of hundreds of beautiful real brain slices encased in acrylic (which had been dubbed "Zombie MRE’s")! Since they’re very sturdy I was allowed to used them as my material and I was set up in a lovely room that holds the card catalog for their library. Over the course of two days I arranged the slices on two large old library tables and climbed a ladder over and over making sure the image looked right from a single vantage point (where I would eventually take my picture). All told I used 375 slices and a bit of fabric for the eye/nose holes…
A couple of two million-year-old skeletons found in South Africa have been classified as a new species and named Australopithecus sediba. This discovery may be a “transitional species” between australopithecines and humans.
Growing to just over 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall, A. sediba has a number of key traits that some would say mark it as an early human, like Homo habilis, which many consider the first human species.
A. sediba, for example, had long legs and certain humanlike characteristics in its pelvis, which would have made it the first human ancestor to walk—perhaps even run—in an energy-efficient manner, the study says.
However, there are also many apelike traits in the new species. Link
(image credit: Brett Eloff)
In reference to the book Cranioklepty by Colin Dickey, Keith Thomson writes at The Huffington Post about the hobby of skull collecting. Among the most famous skulls held in collections might be that of the composer Ludwig Von Beethoven:
The seller is California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who first became aware that his family possessed the item in 1990. While searching among his late mother’s possessions, he happened on an ancient, pear-shaped box labeled “Beethoven.”
Years of investigation by historians and scientists make a compelling case that the box was labeled accurately. Exhibit A: Kaufmann’s great-great uncle was a physician closely involved in the 1863 exhumation of Beethoven (and Franz Schubert) largely for scientific study; according to several accounts, the physician kept Beethoven’s skull. Exhibit B: Tests of existing strands of the composer’s hair point to a DNA match. For Exhibits C through Z, see Dickey’s book.
The owner hopes to earn at least $100,000 for the skull. At the link, you can read about other famous collectible skulls.
Link via Digg | Photo: Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies
Hidden in a Chicago suburb is a funeral home with a 9-hole mini golf course in the basement! Fred Abercrombie made a stop in Palatine, Illinois to visit Ahlgrim Acres, a community room hidden underneath Ahlgrim Funeral Home and took quite a few pictures of the infamous golf course with a haunted theme.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Someone tell Lin Ma that being hammered doesn’t mean that he should literally hammer his own skull:
Hard-headed husband Lin Ma hammered a nail into his own skull after a bust up with his wife over his boozing.
Lin, 66, of Yuyi, southern China, pounded the eight inch nail into his head when wife Su, 60, read him the riot act over a drinking session.
Amazingly, he survived which yet another confirmation that alcohol is good for people with head injury: Link (Photo: europics.at)
To me these solid chocolate skulls are an example of both confectionary making and art. They are cast from REAL human skulls and come in a choice of chocolate including Fair Trade 80 per cent cocoa. There is also their bone chocolate – blended Belgian milk and white chocolates, resembling the colour of freshly cleaned human bones.
Link – via cakeheadlovesevil
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cakehead loves evil.
If scientists and police investigators can reconstruct a face from a skull, why can’t we figure out what Skeletor looked like before he was a skeleton? David at Ironic Sans went to work, or to be accurate, his wife did, and recreated faces for Skeletor, Manuel Calavera, and Jack Skellington. Link -via Laughing Squid
In his art blog called Atlas, Spanish artist Fernando Vicente takes the distinct forms of landmasses and convert them into fantastic images. I particularly like the map of Africa turned into a skull (with Europe being the exploding head – lots of political imagery there).
Check out the entire series here: Link | Fernando’s other work: Anatomías (and for those of you who like politics, check out his work for Diario El País)
Jim is a skull artist. And yes, that means he turns skulls (real or not? I don’t know) into works of art. Right now, he’s really, really into ropes: Link – via I Want Your Skull
12-year-old Nicholas Rossi fell off his bike in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia. His parents rushed him to the local hospital, where Dr. Rob Carson saw the child’s brain was bleeding. The hospital did not have the equipment for brain surgery, so he ordered a drill from the maintenance department in order to open the skull and relieve the pressure.
Michael Rossi says his son would have died if Dr Carson had not acted quickly.
“He came out and he saw us and he said he’s only got one shot at it, and one shot only,” he said. “[He said] ‘I’m going to drill into Nick’s head and try and relieve the pressure’.”
“And he said if we can relieve the pressure he’s going to reach Melbourne via air ambulance in a lot better shape than if we don’t try something.
“Dr Carson told me all he can remember saying is, ‘Get the Black and Decker’.”
Carson consulted with Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace by phone, who talked him through the procedure. Rossi was up and walking around within a couple of days, and has since made a full recovery. Link
Wayne Martin Belger of Boy of Blue Industries created this pinhole camera, named Yama, out of a human skull! Yama is the Tibetan God of Death:
Yama’s eyes are cast from bronze and silver with a brass pinhole in each. A divider runs down the middle of the skull creating
two separate cameras. A finished contact print mounted on copper is inserted in to the back of the camera to view what Yama saw in 3D.Yama is made from Aluminium, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze Steel, Silver, Gold, Mercury with 4 Sapphires, 3 Rubies (The one at Yama’s third eye was $5000.00), Asian and American Turquoise, Sand, Blood, and 9 Opals inlayed in the Skull. The film loading system is pneumatic. A 300psi air tank in the middle of the camera powers 2 pneumatic pistons to move the film holder forward and lock it into place. The switch to open and close the film chamber is located under the jaw.
Previously on Neatorama: The Wonderful World of Early Photography
Photo: Miles Pocket Watches
Oobject, a neat visual directory of gadgets, has an interesting list of Memento mori watches. Memento Mori, latin for "Remember that you will die," is an art genre that span a wide range of styles, but has one purpose: to remind you of your own mortality.
This one above, the Skull and Bones pocket watch, is listed by Miles Pocket Watches as an original creation based on a form of watches made nearly two centuries ago.
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From the website:
For other fantastic cast of bones, see: Link (via Jaf Project) |
