the stone ship of nässja

Though slightly smaller than the last megalith and not presently on a cliff overlooking the sea, this oval of twenty-four giant boulders near Vastena was nonetheless a pretty remarkable setting to contemplate. Sacred oak in the centre spared, traditional wisdom held that these rings were the tribunal sites for pagan judgments and trial-by-ordeal to be carried out. Subsequent scholarship and excavations suggest that these were burial grounds for tribal chieftains—likely dating from the early Iron Age.

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ales stenar

Sticking to the southern coast, we came to a megalithic so called stone ship(see previously)—a burial setting from the late Nordic Iron Age, most likely, of an oval of colossal stone pillars weighing up to five tonnes with larger ones stern and aft. It’s true purpose a matter of dispute, researchers are divided whether the Ale‘s Stones were primarily a funerary monument, a worship site or a sort of lunisolar calendar as there are points of correspondence throughout the year with the turning of the seasons.  The outline of an astral boat, seventy meters long and consisting of fifty-nine boulders,  overlooking the sea reserves some mysteries and projects a certain energy.

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your daily demon: ipos

This twenty-second spirit governing from today through 12 July presents in the form of a chimera described as having the body of a lion with the head and talons of a vulture, the feet of a goose and the tail of a hare, a fearsome earl commanding thirty-six legion. Giving good counsel on things to come, he imbues wit and charisma, Ipos is sometimes conflated with the ancient Egyptian jackal-headed Anubis (originally Inpu), god of the dead, protector of tombs and ferryman conveying souls to the Underworld, and is countered by the guardian angel Yeyayel.

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aconitum napellus

Encountering yet another highly toxic flower in the woods (previously), this example monk’s hood or wolfsbane (Blauer Eisenhut, I think this sort of buttercup is specifically the subspecies Aconitum tauricum, named after Alpine Gaul) is also now cultivated as a garden plant for its complex, scalloped inflorescences and general hardiness returning year after year.

In ancient times, according to Avicenna and other sources, the sap of the plant was used to make poisoned-tipped arrows and spears, and has been used throughout the ages to the present day for dispatching enemies. Even handling the plant can led to organ failure and death—so despite the beauty of the blooms, I can’t understand the appeal of having it in one’s flowerbed (growing them outlawed from the early Middle Ages onward with transgressions subject to capital punishment), and who would have thought the deadliest things in the forest was the flora rather than the fauna.

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glyceria

Meaning sweetness and sharing her feast day with the apparition of Our Lady of Fátima, the second century saint compelled to pray to a sculpture of Jupiter which turned to dust by her faith, for which she was sentenced to be torn asunder by wild animals. Glyceria expired, however, before she could be served. Interestingly, especially in light of the minor craze that erupted a few years ago over the chance to drink the mummy juice—sewage found in Egyptian sarcophagi, the relics of Glyceria are counted among the myroblytes, those whose remains (sometimes their icons as well as their coffins) exude the holy and healing Oil of the Saints.

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7x7

cortège: the custom Land Rover hearse that will convey Prince Philip on his funeral procession

whiter-than-white: ultra-reflective coating (previously) could help cool the climate—via Slashdot  

eboracia: housing developer Keepmoat Holmes discovers sprawling Roman ruins in North Yorkshire  

elenctic debate: honing one’s critical thinking with the Socratic method 

emojinal rescue: the Unicode subcommittee reconvenes, heralding the coming of new glyphs  

ramshackle: illustrations of antient structures that survived the Great Fire of London before they were ultimately demolished  

pleurants: bright and bold floral urns for cremains

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6x6

berggeschrei: Saxon princes collected, modelled miniature mountains and enjoyed miner cos-play 

#oddlysatisfying: the hypnotic and self-soothing qualities of visual ASMR  

it’s not a cult thing: an interview with the real estate agent selling this ‘sexy funeral Goth house’ in Baltimore—via Super Punch  

erard square action: a tool that measures a piano key’s up- and down-weight  

slamilton: a basketball musical of Space Jam meshed with Hamilton—see previously—that works better than it should, via Waxy  

den hügel hinauf: Amanda Gorman’s inspirational US presidential inaugural poem (see also) will be published in German

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myrrhbearers

Patron of funeral directors, morticians and undertakers, Joseph of Arimathea was fêted on this day according to the traditional Martyrologium Romanum but is now celebrated on 31 August along with his fellow secret disciple Nicodemus who helped prepare the body of Jesus for burial. Not much more is related about these wealthy (Joseph was appointed Nobilis Decurio, Minister of the Mines), covert followers in the Gospels who sought permission from Pontius Pilate to care for and prepare the corpse with spices that Nicodemus purchased after crucifixion and see to his entombment. The title refers to collective term given these two men and the Three Marys when they return to find the tomb empty. Further embellishment subsequently connects Joseph with the Arthurian cycle and the Matter of Britain, placing the saint among the first missionaries on the Isles (reportedly teaching the Cornish how to excavate tin) and of course guardian of the Holy Grail.

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one-way ticket

Via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (much more to explore here), we receive a lightly macabre update to the former dedicated rail-line in London that transported the departed and mourners from the overcrowded city out to a cemetery in Woking with news that the purpose-built Waterloo Necropolis station built in 1854 (expanded in 1901) will be transformed into a suite of flats. The seal is that of the company granted the charter to construct the grounds and arrange the logistics and transportation. Though large portions of the building were destroyed in World War II during a 1941 air raid, what remains is witness to the automation of the funerary arts with halls designed for private service and hydraulic lifts to bring the briers on to the loading docks below, a shift towards hygienic awareness (a dread cholera epidemic decades earlier had overwhelmed London’s graveyards) and separate entrances that showed that even the dead were expected to be class conscious.

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land of hope and gloria

Having set forth specific detailed instructions for a funeral with military honours befitting her status and having passed away rather inconsiderately a distance from London on the Isle of Wight, the death of Victoria (previously) would have been a logistically fraught affair if it were not for her careful planning. Surrounded by her son and successor King Edward VII and grandson Wilhelm (future Prussian king and last Kaiser) and her favourite Pomeranian called Turi (see also), Victoria expired on this day in 1901, heretofore, the longest reigning British monarch. The state cortège travelled to Gosport with a fleet of yachts transporting the new king and mourners and Victoria was placed in her coffin, son and grandson aided by Prince Arthur, with an array of mementos from family and domestics, including a dressing gown that belonged to her departed husband Albert and a plaster cast of his hand as well as a lock of John Brown’s hair and a photograph of him that was artfully hidden from those paying last respects by carefully placed bouquet of flowers. The state funeral and procession took place 2 February.

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rip rbg

Incredibly, following a private service in the Great Hall and after lying in repose at the US Supreme Court building’s portico Thursday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol rotunda.

Rosa Parks was accorded a similar honour when she passed away in 2005, but because she was not a public official, was said to be resting. Thirty-four men have been granted a viewing in the halls of Congress. Since the president’s 1865 assassination, all those who have lain in state have been presented on the Lincoln catafalque, a funeral bier originally constructed for the funeral services for George Washington but like the cenotaph two storeys below the Capitol known as Washington’s Tomb (unoccupied and where the caisson was customarily stored when not in use), was not implemented at the time. With the high holy day of Yom Kippur beginning at sunset on Sunday, Ginsburg won’t be lain to rest at Arlington National Cemetery until next Tuesday.

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bier and bookcase

As seen advertised (right) in Harper’s classifieds in 1991 for custom-built models and then as a similar DYI concept with send-away instructions tailored for one’s measurements about two decades later after the London Design Festival in 2009—recently featured on Weird Universe and Pasa Bon! respectively—I wonder if the next iteration of furniture, shelving unit that transforms into a casket to convey one to the here-after might not be done for its reintroduction soon. What do you make of these morbid but practical design suggestions? The handles and decorative, devotional ornaments are themselves called fittings or “coffin furniture”—not to be confused with other movable furnishings that are coffin-shaped, whereas preparing the inside is called “trimming.” Having the foresight to display one’s future funerary box is certainly a conversation-piece.

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lemuralia

Celebrated discontinuously on today, the eleventh and the thirteenth, the Roman performed annual rites into order to exercise malevolent spirits of the dead that had taken up residence in their house during the previous year whom might be lured away with offerings of beans.
The Vestal priestesses whose chief patronage was for hearth and home, cultivating a sacred fire that symbolically burned for all and was never to be extinguished, baked all the mola salsa used throughout the year, salted flour cakes that were much like communion wafers and were burnt offerings themselves as well as given to sacrificial animals—for the whole city and for Lemuralia made a special batch made with the first ears of grain of the season to help appease the restive dead. According to contemporary scholarship by Ovid, the observance was derived from an older ritual called Remuria instituted by the founder of Rome himself to atone for the death of his brother, Remus.
Incantations included the head of the household (paterfamilias) rising at midnight and pattering around the chambers barefooted and tossing black beans over his or her shoulder, favomancy—see above, and repeating Haec ego mitto—his redimo meque meosque fabis (These I dispatch; with these beans I redeem me and mine) with the rest of the family and domestics banging pots and pans. Though All Saints and All Souls Day for Western Christianity has been advanced toward the end of October and beginning of November (Halloween right now? Yes please), for the Eastern Catholic and Oriental Orthodox church, they are celebrated on the Friday following Easter as perhaps a syncretism of this Roman custom. Because of the vacating of noxious ghosts, the month was considered an inauspicious time to wed, and hence the proverb: Mense Maio malae nubunt—Bad girls get married in May.

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smrt in pogreb josipa broza tita

Four days after his death in Ljubljana due to complications during surgery to correct circulation problems in his legs, the government of Yugoslavia held the largest state funeral in history for president Josip Broz Tito (*1892), drawing guests—kings, princes, presidents and ministers—from nearly every polity in the world on this day in the streets of Belgrade in 1980.
Tens of thousands filed past his casket and paid their solemn, earnest respect for two and a half days prior to arrival of the foreign dignitaries to the only leader the citizens of the independent communist county had known. Leaders and delegates in attendance were from both aligned and non-aligned countries and both sides geographically and ideologically of the Iron Curtain. Amid the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and facing re-election, the US president opted not to attend, instead sending his mother Lilian Carter with vice-president Walter Mondale. A ceremony of pomp and fanfare to celebrate the progress the Tito’s leadership had brought for the worker, the occasion was also an opportunity for building networks, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany met with his East German counterpart and Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Margaret Thatcher met with the leadership of Zambia, Italy and Romania, trying to rally international condemnation over said invasion. The leader was interned in a mausoleum in Belgrade that became known as the House of Flowers (Hiša cvetja, Kuća cvijeća, Кућа цвећа, Куќа на цвеќето)—the space that was a covered garden outside of Tito’s auxiliary office internally referred to as the “flower shop.”

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thanatopsis

The always excellent podcast Hidden Brain boldly tackles a subject that is usually avoided or talked around in polite company if not suppressed to the point of being a social taboo: death.
Approaching the topic via the broad and non-empirical idea that fear of death drives every decision we make and informs and limits our agency with some evidence-based psychological experiments, we see that although we think we are avoiding the matter of our own mortality and legacy in not articulating it, we’re always practising terror management in one form or another, and couched as we all are in the comforts of convention, we remain unaware of these instigations until confronted with its unforgiving finality. Necessary and human as the anxiety is, we cede more power to a nebulous and unnamed fear that serves to reinforce the judgments and opinions it covertly influences. Ibidem the same source as above, we are treated to another podcast—from Vox magazine—that correlates well with the theme of memento mori but this time musically. Four close and dark notes from a Gregorian mass intoned at funerals—Dies Iræ, Reckoning, the Day of Wrath—still resounds and is hiding everywhere in popular culture. The same tones cue us (perhaps steel us) to something grim approaching and is sampled in scores of film and television soundscapes. Cultural hegemony being what it is, I wonder how universal these impulses and signifiers are.

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ferryman or necropolis junction

Via the always intriguing Nag on the Lake, we learn about a morbidly strange but practical rail line in operation from November 1854 until bombed during the London Blitz in World War II that was in the exclusive service of transporting the departed and their mourners to a sprawling necropolis, a convenient journey from central London but also not close enough that the graves might pose a public health hazard.
Conceived as a way to alleviate severe overcrowding in ancient urban cemeteries, the living population having doubled from the beginning to the mid seventeenth century and an outbreak of cholera completely overwhelmed the struggling funeral system, the trains going to Necropolis Junction were segregated by animate/inanimate, class and confession and travel along a picturesque route daily. After the war, the railway was not rebuilt, the scheme proving less palatable (not in keeping with due solemnity) and profitable than the backers had hoped, and the motorised hearse had already fulfilled that need.

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ashes to ashes

Rather jarringly but with the message that last rites should not be nihilistic—or pantheistic—the Vatican has issued a prohibition against the scattering of cremains to the winds or dividing the ashes among family and friends as final keepsakes.
Although Church doctrine—just since 1963—allows cremation burial is preferable and earthly remains should be deposited on consecrated grounds and the grave-goods ought not kept in an urn on the mantle. Having lived in Germany for a long time, such morbid license that’s allowable in America does seem a little strange and quite other. What do you make of all this? As many amongst us are loathe to shuffle off this amortal coil, it is an uncomfortable thing to think about how we’d like to be celebrated.

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art funéraire

While touring the Île d’Oléron and stopping to explore the village of Saint-Pierre, we were struck by this significant though rather mysterious monument from the Middle Ages.
This model so- called lantern of the dead (lanternes des morts oder Totenleuchte) dates from at least the 1150s appear throughout western France, and though the oldest and highest at twenty-eight meters, inland, it was not visible for great distances—mostly on the periphery of cemeteries, as this one is, probably was kept as an eternal flame or lit to recall the parish to funerary rites. No one knows for certain to their custom and origin, however.
Most presume that these free-standing spires were early dedications akin to wayside shrines (Weg- oder Bildstöcke) that commemorate accidents or escapes on pilgrimage routes, but given their sturdiness and clean polygonal symmetries (the church of the village had similar early gothic angles), people entertain all sorts of influences (cheminées sarrasines they are sometimes called perhaps as a memory from the Battle of Tours) and forgotten rituals, perhaps even originally to purpose as warning of quarantine or danger, despite the continuance of history.

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epitaph

Ahead of its planned field-trips on its founding day (we all ought to arrange our own outings as well to showcase the places for which we could be expert tour-guides), Atlas Obscura features a bitter-sweet, maudlin memorial to the struggles and triumphs of the gay community with a locus in the Congressional Cemetery securing of its own special corner.
Dishonourably discharged from the US armed forces for being a homosexual (against the advice of the court-appointed psychologist), Vietnam veteran Leonard Matlovich, sadly in anticipation of his imminent demise from AIDS related complications, devoted himself to making a statement for the ages. Within view of the resting place of self-loathing J Edgar Hoover, whose witch-hunts perpetuated discriminatory practises, and his suspected lover, Matlovich purchased a pair of plots and designed his nameless headstone, to be etched for the silent and anonymous sufferers whom had to hide their love away. Since his funeral, Matlovich has been joined by many others in repose and symbolically in victory as well, with several military same-sex weddings, legal and wholly vetted, held before Matlovich’s grave.

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5x5

first rule – don’t talk about fight club: bacterial cock-fighting may lead to new antibiotic therapies, via Dangerous Minds

don’t pay the ferry man: mysterious figuring punting in an Australian lake dressed as an undertaker, traveling via open casket

nightmare of dishpan hands: vintage laundry shaming

disrobed, disarming: 3D printed model of the Venus de Milo allows art history scholars to guess what she might have been doing with her hands

gravity assists: a thoughtful explanation and reflection of the slingshot effect in space propulsion via BLDGBlog 

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