#skull

Susan Elaine Jones

Feb 3, 2020
2 min

It's what's under the skin that counts

I love it when a plan comes together. I've finally met all the right people and I'm making progress. I am working on 3D printing a skull from a live person! What I needed first was someone's CT scan... and thanks to various health complaints I found someone who had a scan for multiple myeloma! Then I found a wonderful chap who works at Addenbrookes' hospital, making 3D prints of various broken and wonky bits of people to help surgeons figure out how to fix them. He could get

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Susan Elaine Jones

Jul 11, 2019
8 min

In defence of buying a human skeleton

It isn’t about owning a skeleton. It is about access. It is about trust. It is about our shared humanity. It’s about communion with our mortality. I made a decision when I was 13 that means some people think I should not be allowed to handle a skeleton now. At that young age, a bunny-hugging, anti-vivisection, vegetarian, I refused to study GCSE biology because of the compulsory murder and dissection of healthy mice. That decision closed off entire avenues of study to me, whi

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Susan Elaine Jones

Jun 20, 2018
4 min

What is art for?

So this week, month, and some of this year, and years before, I have been contemplating art. In a classic photographic text, I came across a statement of three questions to think about when contemplating a photograph, which can apply to any piece of art: What has the artist done? What was the artist trying to achieve? Was it worth it? The first is a straightforward description of what you see. The second, an analysis of what you think it means. The third...? That third point

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Susan Elaine Jones

Nov 3, 2017
1 min

Books for sale - direct!

Looking for the perfect Christmas present for that friend who still wishes it was Halloween? Buy my book! I know I've mentioned this before, but this time, you can buy directly for me, which means I can sign a dedication to you or your friend directly. And means I can sell it for the £25 in total (none of that expensive blurb postage and packing costs). And who knows what other freebies I might throw in to say thank you! And you can help me buy things for Christmas for peopl

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Susan Elaine Jones

Aug 18, 2017
3 min

Meeting a new skull

So last month I had a chance to meet a new skull. And was invited by a pro to "say what I see". Let's see what I can tell you about a person just on looking at their skull. Please enjoy my amateurish tour of the bits and bobs that I noticed. The first thing I noted was the obvious damage to the frontal bone - probably post mortem and post preparation as a display skull. Also obvious from this angle are the fairly prominent suture lines which indicate this was probably an adul

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Susan Elaine Jones

Jul 26, 2017
2 min

Timeline of death (in art)

After the wonderful, lovely, joyful, belly laughs of the Death and the Maiden conference, I have been resting. I did present the full Marathon scale of Progressive Acceptability, and did throw sweets to the audience to make the point stick. I also ran out of time; in my rehearsals I made allowances for throwing, but not the catching of sweets, or the distraction of seeing someone spot an unclaimed starburst on the floor, and slowly slinking out of their chair to get it unob

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The Marathon scale of progressive acceptability

Susan Elaine Jones

Jul 15, 2017
2 min

The Marathon scale of progressive acceptability

Sorry I've been so quiet recently. I had a long rest after Dying for Life, then a push to write up the final bits for my photography degree and Arts Council grant. And now I'm converting some of my dissertation (and yes, that's a link to my actual dissertation - if you fancy a read) into a 20 minute whirlwind tour of death in visual art in the past 1000 years for the Death and the Maiden conference. I am currently wrangling with quite how much I should venture my personal the

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How the sieve changed the skull (or not)

Susan Elaine Jones

Jun 16, 2017
4 min

How the sieve changed the skull (or not)

***Correction to this information - see bottom of blog*** Of all the nightmare fodder I shared on the last post, the question that came through the comments was about how food has changed skull shapes. Well, what can I say but that I am happy to help? Using my handy copy of Simon Mays' The Archaeology of Human Bones (pp,96-100) and the Colour Atlas of Human Anatomy (pp.14, 70) and a bit of a search on the web (as unfortunately the main references from Mays are behind paywall

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Susan Elaine Jones

Jun 9, 2017
3 min

The Malice of Raspberry Seeds

Sorry for a period of quiet, I've had a bit of a tooth ache and been trying to book a visit to a dentist. It's all because raspberries are coming in season, and I've been enjoying Eton messes under the guise of healthy eating. (It's nothing to do with gnashing of teeth over the baffling election results... honest.) But that also means I've been jamming raspberry seeds in my perfectly shaped molar-dimple-raspberry-seed-receptacle - resulting in that jarring hellish sensation

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Susan Elaine Jones

May 22, 2017
1 min

Dying for Life was dead good

A very quick post (as I'm still exhausted) to say how brilliant the Dying for Life Event was. Over 150 people came to chat about dying, meet the skeletons and look at the pretty pictures. Some even bought the book (a few spares are still available, and cheaper from me than Blurb - contact me!). It was so lovely to talk to people with such different backgrounds and such different views, all learning from each other new ways to talk about and handle death. I had long discussion

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When I'm dead, I want to go out and meet new people

Susan Elaine Jones

May 5, 2017
2 min

When I'm dead, I want to go out and meet new people

Through some fantastic luck, a chance meeting a few years ago sparked my interest in skeletons and came together as a superb visit to an osteoarchaeology collection. And this happened on my birthday. How brilliant is that? Victorian casts of female (top) and male (bottom) skulls, showing strong sexual identifying features This osteoarchaeology collection (see portfolio here) is usually kept behind locked doors and used for teaching the students at Cambridge University. Not on

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Undiscovered gems of the Cambridge Science Festival… the Duckworth Collection at the LCHES.

Susan Elaine Jones

Apr 26, 2017
4 min

Undiscovered gems of the Cambridge Science Festival… the Duckworth Collection at the LCHES.

18,050* people were at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies last month. *This figure is an estimate. But I guess that 50 alive people came to visit some of the 18,000 human remains of the Duckworth Collection, kept at the LCHES. Of course, because of the peculiar sensitivities of the British, most of the human remains weren’t (and aren’t ever) on display. But there were an impressive mass of human and hominid skull casts in the main reception room; the best I

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No tea, no biscuits. Just the taste of bone.

Susan Elaine Jones

Mar 25, 2017
2 min

No tea, no biscuits. Just the taste of bone.

Visiting one of only two charnel chapels (or ossuaries) left in the country left a bitter taste in my mouth. Though it was possibly more sour than bitter. Or tangy. Very musty certainly. Once tasted, never forgotten. Unfortunately, though the internet mentions that admission includes tea and biscuits (how very British), on our visit they didn't seem to be offered to take the taste away. See portfolio here! So to say that Rothwell Charnel House has an atmosphere would be a s

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Susan Elaine Jones

Feb 24, 2017
1 min

Skulls a plenty

Today, not many words are needed, as I just wanted to share my first attempts to bring out the beauty of the variety of skull shapes. It's something that is difficult to appreciate as most museums show only one skull or skeleton to stand in for the all. But I have had a rare chance to put four skulls side by side so that you can directly compare. (One notable exception is the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.) The skulls shown represent different races, different sexes, differen

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Susan Elaine Jones

Jul 1, 2016
1 min

Late for the day of the dead

Finally had the opportunity to spend some time with a camera in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I lingered at least an hour longer than I had planned, drawn by the day of the dead exhibit upstairs. I love that museums make room for folkart objects (things with the skill level that I could have made them). It gives a great feeling of accessibility. And if only I would think of making a skull with hair rollers in, my work could be included in one of the gl

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Susan Elaine Jones

Apr 8, 2016
2 min

Witch skull with iron stake for sale

(Witch skull, Woolley and Wallis Auction House, Salisbury) It's not often that the usual run of skulls up for auction varies from the Victorian medical specimens. But this one caught my eye, and I dearly hope it has found its way to some folk museum in the country. The catalogue text reads: "Provenance: The skull was discovered in 1951 by workmen excavating foundations on Brook Road, Kinson, Bournemouth. It was found at a depth of about two feet with tree roots growing throug

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Susan Elaine Jones

Mar 25, 2016
1 min

Lost your head?

A number of friends shared this with me, asking if I was in some way responsible. (Those of you who don't know me might not be aware of my skeleton and skull buying habits.) But in this case, it really is nothing to do with me. By fun coincidence, a skull was reported missing from King's College. But on inspection, isn't that missing skull. It also isn't Cromwell's skull, which is "known" to be missing in Cambridge (by repute buried somewhere in Sidney Sussex College grounds)

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Susan Elaine Jones

Nov 20, 2015
1 min

Skulls with soul

Some bones just give you a look. It is often the primates, but some skulls seemespecially expressive, and just catch your attention. This "enigmatic gibbon" is the Grant Museum blog specimen of the week. and I can't stop looking at it. It is like it is begging for a returned glance of mutual understanding. He reminds me of an immature gorilla at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. An archaeologist friend assures me that some skulls "smile". I won't say more. I wi

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Susan Elaine Jones

Oct 31, 2014
1 min

Skull with a smile

One of the most engaging exhibits at the Oxford Museum of Natural History is this skull. It is a juvenile Western Gorilla, looking out of one of the glass cases with as much curiosity as I looked in. It is noted in the database as Gorilla savagii - which along with King Kong helped give the impression that gorillas were savage. No more so than humans. Specifically the Thomas Savage who collected many of the early specimens in the 1840s, which were taxonomically named in his h

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Susan Elaine Jones

Dec 13, 2013
1 min

SOS - Save our skulls!

Do yourself a favour. Rather than receive the same old Christmas jumper and socks this year, get your relatives to buy you a skull! There are dozens still available from this wonderful Christmas catalogue, (original link now dead, so put link to my copy) produced by the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. To be fair, you don't get to take your skull home. But thousands of people will come to admire it. When did anyone admire your last Christmas present? Comments of "oh, nice jumpe

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SUSAN ELAINE JONES

Death Awareness - DYING FOR LIFE
including "Fun things to do when you're dead" event, Saturday 13th May 2023
Professional photo services at OSTEOPHOTO