Death and the media...

Joint event organised by the Media Study Group and Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group

15th November, 10:30am - 4:30pm

BSA London Meeting Room, Imperial Wharf

Theme: Death and the Media

In a time of 24/7 news channels, easy access to the internet and a burgeoning celebrity culture, death is an important source of news for journalism. Framed by ongoing discussions about the visibility of death within Western Society, death in the media adds an interesting and valuable contribution to debates about death denial and death as taboo.

This symposium will bring together academics from Sociology and associated disciplines to consider the coverage of death in the media and what this may reveal about the status of death in contemporary society more generally. Papers on the day will cover popular images of death in tabloid journalism/magazines; news realism and the representation of “ordinary deaths”; accidental, extraordinary and sensational media accounts of death; news constructions of mourning; blogs and alternative (lay) views of death; the death of celebrities in the news; ethical issues in reporting /photographing death; compassion, morality and the reporting of death and suffering.

For further information and to book your place, click here...

Launch of the Association for the Study of Death & Society website...

Image: from a series of six engravings of memento mori by the German artist Alexander Mair, 1605, Monoscope

The Association for the Study for Death & Society (ASDS) has formally launched its website this month. The site features news and events, a photo gallery, profiles of the council members and regional representative of the Association, details of the DDD conference series, jobs, and links to other organisations. Additionally, members have access to discussion forums, a database of member’s research and teaching interests, and lists of member’s publications. Members are automatically listed in the database and receive favourable rates for the DDD conference series and the journal ‘Death Studies’.

ASDS promotes the study of death in the arts, humanities, social and allied sciences. To this end the Association will:

• Foster and promote publication, conferences and multidisciplinary networks
• Support academic professional development
• Promote high quality, ethical research
• Shape and influence policy and practice agendas
• Support the teaching of death studies
• Promote the widespread recognition of death studies
• Represent the interests of the membership

If you would like more information about ASDS and how to become a member, visit the website at http://www.deathandsociety.org/index.php.

Shortage of space in cemeteries...

Photo: Andrew Fox/Corbis, The Guardian

Try not to die if you live in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets or Hackney – the councils don't have anywhere to put you. They are among a growing number of local authorities across Britain that have run out of burial space, or are close to it.

Some estimates suggest that by 2019 all 130 cemeteries in London and its outer areas will have run out of capacity. And it's not just the capital that is suffering. Last month the popular retirement area of Poole in Dorset said its two remaining cemeteries would run out of space within a year, while in Wales church leaders have warned of a "burial crisis", with a quarter of grounds already full and 43% with fewer than 20 spaces left.

The shortage – and the fact that councils are strapped for cash – is pushing up burial fees. Last month Glasgow increased the cost of a new plot from £658 to £1,076, and from £540 to £808 for burial in an existing family plot. Data from Cipfa, the organisation for accountants in the public sector, shows that between 2008 and 2009 the average fee for interments in the UK rose from £458 to £493, up 8.7%. The fee for burial outside your home borough rose even more, to £903 from £833.

Private operators are moving in to fill the gap – and this week saw the launch of "CemeteryInvest.com", which is offering plots for £875 at a new cemetery on the edge of Birmingham.

However, it is not targeting the bereaved or people trying to reserve a space for themselves – it is aimed at private investors, who, in effect, lease the land then sell later at a profit. It claims investors could make 60% in as little as two years, and can even put the investment into their pension.

"The concept is very simple. We allow investors to forward-purchase individual plots at a discounted rate. They are then managed by the cemetery and offered back to the public at their usual market value upon completion of the landscaping in 2012, providing you with the returns," says promoter Alex Ogden. He claims nearby local cemeteries are selling space for between £1,480 and £1,600, so buying at £875 today will give investors almost guaranteed returns.

But there are risks. This is not a business regulated by the Financial Services Authority, so it is unsupervised, and there is no access to compensation should anything go wrong.

For the full story, see here...

Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections...

Photo: Morbid Curiosity, taken at the Manchester Museum

To be published on 22nd October, Dr Tiffany Jenkins' book examines the crisis of cultural authority within museums:

Since the late 1970s human remains in museum collections have been subject to claims and controversies, such as demands for repatriation by indigenous groups who suffered under colonization. These requests have been strongly contested by scientists who research the material and consider it unique evidence.

This book charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines the construction of this problem from a cultural perspective. It shows that claims on dead bodies are not confined to once colonized groups. A group of British Pagans, Honouring the Ancient Dead, formed to make claims on skeletons from the British Isles. And ancient human remains, bog bodies and Egyptian mummies, which have not been requested by any group, have become the focus of campaigns initiated by members of the profession, at times removed from display in the name of respect.

By drawing on empirical research including extensive interviews with the claims-making groups, ethnographic work, document, media, and policy analysis, Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections demonstrates that strong internal influences do in fact exist. The only book to examine the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, it advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, and making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.

Digital Death Day...

Digital Death Day

9th October, 9am - 5pm

The Centre for Creative Collaboration

The University of London



Death is a part of life and life has (to an extent) become digital.

This un-conference will be primarily concerned with provoking discourse around the social, cultural and practical implications of Death in the Digital World. Thus stimulating a reconsideration of how death, mourning, memories and history are currently being augmented in our technologically mediated society.

The archiving, networking and post mortem engagement of ‘digital remains’ leads us to consider what place digital information has in our lives legally, sentimentally and historically.

For further details, see here...

Excellent news...

Image: the Coffin Works, Jewellery Quarter

Last year, I blogged about the Newman Brothers Coffin Works in Birmingham and the cuts in national public funding which led to regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, which owned the site, to pull out restoring the building as a museum. However, the building has now been purchased by the Birmingham Conservation Trust as a result of a £150,000 grant from Birmingham City Council. For more on this story and the future of the Coffin Works, see here...

Don't forget to floss...

An interesting photo set taken within an abandoned dentist's clinic - for more see here...

Zombie studies...

Image: DiabloRose

It is a class to die for - Zombie studies is now on the curriculum at the University of Baltimore. The new course, which promises to "get you ready for a zombie apocalypse", invites students to devour classic zombie films and comics. Instead of essays, they write horror scripts or draw storyboards for their ideal monster movie. The minor class, titled English 333, has already been dubbed "Zombie 101" by the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

It was introduced to meet a demand for "interesting, off-the-wall" courses for a new minor in pop culture, according to Jonathan Shorr, chairman of the university's school of communications design.

"It's a back door into a lot of subjects," he told the Baltimore Sun. "They think they're taking this wacko zombie course, and they are. But on the way, they learn how literature and mass media work, and how they come to reflect our times."

For more details, see here the BBC website here...

For the Love of...

Image: For the Love of Chocolates by Valerie N'Doye, Show Me

A cheeky take on Damien Hirst's infamous diamond-encrusted skull, For the Love of Chocolate features in the exhibition Double Take at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery which runs until September 25, 2010.

New book on dark tourism...

Image: the wreckage of the World Trade Centre, Steve McCurry

Edited by Philip Stone and Richard Sharpley of the Dark Tourism Forum, Tourist Experience: Contemporary Perspectives features three chapters dedicated to thanatourism. Set to be published in September, you can pre-order a copy here!

Heritage that hurts...

Image: 'Work sets you free', the gate at Auschwitz, Kvinnonet

From Auschwitz to Ground Zero: dealing with heritage that hurts is a new weekend-long course being offered by the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. The course examines how and why sites wounded by violent events have been remembered - or not. It will also explore why historic sites and monuments are specifically targeted for destruction. For more information and booking details, see here.

Using the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Oklahoma City National Memorial, Ground Zero, Auschwitz and the Soviet Gulags among others as case-studies, we will reflect on how these 'dark tourism' sites are 'produced' and 'consumed'. We will ask: why tourists visit, what they experience while they are there and what messages they walk away with.

Book of the Dead...

Image: Catatonic Man, Magenta Magazine 

This photograph is one of 52 images captured by Canadian photographer James Burman in his provocative new book, The Dead. The book is a collection of memento moris and post-mortem photography that documents his travels from the catacombs of Sicily to the gas chambers of Poland. You can read more about the book and the man in question here, which alas, is only available in the US and Canada at this time.

Skeletons do pin-up...

Images: Style Noir

Medical imaging firm EIZO decided to make their own version of the infamous Pirelli calendar for 2010 as a marketing give-away, highlighting their expertise in the field.With 12 images of naked women literally baring all, what do you think of the end result? As an ardent admirer of the pin-up aesthetic and obviously, a self-confessed fan of the, er, skeleton, I can't help feeling that this just verges on the ever-so-slighty creepy...

New thinking on what killed the people of Pompeii...

Image: the plaster cast of a man sits amid urns and fountains inside one of the storage rooms at the site of Pompeii, Global Post

New research shows that the population died from the extreme temperature carried by the volvano's pyroclastic flow, rather than suffocation by ash. For the full story, see here...

Oetzi the Iceman...

Image: hosae.ch

Straight from the BBC website...

Oetzi, the 5,000 year old "Iceman" found in the Italian Alps, may have been ceremonially buried, archaeologists claim. An autopsy showed that Oetzi had been murdered, dying of an arrow wound. While this is not disputed, a new study suggests that months after his death, Oetzi's corpse was carried to the high mountain pass where it was found. The discovery site therefore may not be a murder scene after all, but a burial ground. The new study, led by Professor Luca Bondioli of the National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnology in Rome and his US-Italian team, is published in the journal Antiquity.

Oetzi was discovered on the alpine border between Italy and Austria in 1991. Although thought at first to be the corpse of a modern climber, scientists later proved that the mummified body was more than 5,000 years old. An autopsy in 2001 further showed that he had been killed by an arrow wound to the shoulder.

Dead and buried

In the new study, researchers produced a detailed map of where the corpse and artefacts were found. Based on guesses about how the artefacts had dispersed down slope over time, they inferred that the body had originated on a rock platform nearby. They argued that this was a later burial site, and not the original scene of his murder. This "burial theory" may explain some perplexing facts about Oetzi. For example, analysis suggests he died in the spring because the pollen of plants that bloom at that time of year is found in his gut. However, pollen within the ice suggests that the corpse was deposited in the late summer. Professor Bondioli and his team say that these facts makes most sense if the body was deliberately carried to its site of discovery many months after death. This suggests a burial. Professor Bondioli elaborated: "Oetzi must have been a very important person to be taken to this high mountain pass for burial. Perhaps he was some sort of a chieftan."

Not bullet proof

However, Professor Frank Ruehli of the University of Zurich, the medical doctor who performed the original autopsy, is not totally convinced by the burial theory. He remarked: "The left arm of the corpse is in a weird position. This must have happened at the time of death. If Oetzi was a chieftan, why did his people not move the twisted arm into a more natural position?" he told BBC News. "This would be expected in the burial of an important person". Also somewhat sceptical is Dr Wolfgang Muller of Royal Holloway University of London. He studied the chemistry of Oetzi's teeth and bones to track his migration route through the Alps.

"It's an interesting new interpretation but it's not bullet proof," he said. "However, if Oetzi was buried they must have carried the body a long way because the nearby villages would have been at a low altitude."

While much remains to be learned about the enigmatic Iceman - as the mummified corpse has been dubbed - one thing is certain: This famous mummy will remain the subject of intense speculation and new research for decades to come.

Queen of the Inch...

Image: BBC News

A 4,000-year-old skeleton, known as the Queen of the Inch, is to be re-interred in the tiny island of Inchmarnock, at the northern end of the Sound of Bute on the west coast of Scotland.

The grave was found by a farmer in the 1950s as he ploughed a field- Preserved in an ancient cist, the remains included a necklace and dagger. Despite being examined by archaeologists and reburied in the 1960s, the skeleton was recently exhumed again and studied using modern research techniques. Scientists have since been able to determine that the woman lived on Inchmarnock and came from the Clyde Estuary and that she did not eat seafood, despite the fact she lived on an island.

"She must have been a queen or chieftain or something very important in her own right. There were plenty of people who lived on the island but very very few were given cist burials and with something as spectacular as the necklace, which obviously she was allowed to keep. It was buried with her. It didn't pass on to anyone else," Anne Spiers, curator of archaeology at Bute Museum, said.

The reconstruction of the queen's head and the necklace, which was found to be made of Whitby jet, are now on show at Bute Museum. The current owner of Inchmarnock Island, Lord Smith of Kelvin, said it was now time for the remains to be reburied. He said: "It right that she goes back. When you speak with the researchers and scientists, obviously they wanted her for a period of time. But I was always clear that once they had actually looked at her properly, because we all need to understand what her forebears were like and what they did and so on, she had to go back."

Source: Stone Pages

Teenage undertakers...

Image: The Arts Desk

Interesting programme on last night about teenage undertakers...if you've ever fancied a nose behind closed doors, check out the programme here.

Bronze Age man speaks...

Image: Culture 24

In 2005, academics moved the skeleton of a Bronze Age man found in 1834 in a makeshift grave of a hollowed-out Yorkshire tree to the Division of Archaeological Sciences at Bradford University.

Their aim was to end 170 years of conjecture by carrying out tests on the gangly skeleton, including a CT scan on his skull courtesy of Bradford Royal Infirmary.

As he heads back to his original home at Scarborough's decadent Rotunda Museum, a few of Gristhorpe Man's secrets have been rumbled, and he’s even about to speak for the first time in 4,000 years.

"Investigations by a team of us at Bradford showed that he was in his early 60s, had lived in the area most of his life and had usually been in good health," says Dr Alan Ogden, a dentist and osteologist who credits the corpse with being "the best preserved 4,000-year-old skeleton in Britain."

"He was tall and muscular and had lived on a rich and carefully prepared diet. We presume, therefore, that he was part of a local ruling family. His death was relatively sudden, and was probably related to a brain tumour revealed by our examinations."

Ogden wasn't finished with the skull. He used it to build a facial reconstruction of the skeleton which he’s installed at the Rotunda, complete with "software techniques" to animate Gristhorpe Man's face as he speaks in English.

"He would actually have spoken a form of Proto-Celtic that we can only guess at," concedes Ogden.

"Unfortunately such a model bears only as much likeness to a living person as a formal passport photograph. But by this means I hope that visitors to the Museum can visualise him as a living man, a senior figure in his society, used to being obeyed and probably even revered."

Karen Snowden, Head of Collections for Scarborough Museums Trust, says organisers at the museum are "really excited" about their more expressive returning son.

"His skeleton, grave goods and coffin are one of the most important group of objects in Scarborough’s collections, and we have been working with Bradford University for a few years now to fully understand this unique man and his history," she reflects.

"The story is now made more real with the addition of his voice."

Open 10am – 5pm (closed Mondays). Admission £4.50/£4 (£9/£8 for free re-entry for a year, free for under-18s.)

Source: Culture 24

Skeleton of dismembered child found by archaeologists...

Image: Dr Jill Eyers, Bucks Free Press

Archaeologists re-investigating a mass burial of 97 infants have discovered the skeleton of a dismembered child. The group has been carrying out tests on excavation finds from 1912 at the Yewden villa, examining the remains of the infants which were rediscovered in boxes kept at Buckinghamshire County Museum. The examination has revealed that the infants died at 40 weeks gestation, leading Chiltern archaeologists to suspect that the site in Hambleden could have been a Roman brothelm, where unwanted children were systematically killed.

For more on this story, see here or alternatively, check out the new BBC series 'Digging for Britain' which features the excavations at Yewden villa in the first episode.

Tattoo collection...

Yoinked from Morbid Anatomy, I highly recommend checking out the ‘photo story’ documenting a collection of tattoos found in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

Image: Morbid Anatomy

Accompanying the images is a fascinating article, an excerpt from which is provided below!

Preserving the Criminal Code

Photo Stories

Katarzyna Mirczak

In Poland, tattoos are common among criminals. Traditionally, they could be found on people who exhibited a tendency towards perverse behaviour: such as burglars, thieves, rapists and pimps. It was noticed that a significant percentage of tattooed people showed signs of personality disorders and aggressive behaviour. In the 1960s in Poland, getting a prison tattoo required special skills and criminal ambition – it was a kind of ennoblement, each tattoo in the criminal world was meaningful…

The tattoo collection at the Department of Forensic Medicine at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland consists of 60 objects preserved in formaldehyde, a method devised by one of the experts employed by the Department at the turn of 20th century.

The tattoos were collected from the prisoners of the nearby state penitentiary on Montelupich Street as well as from the deceased on whom autopsies were performed.

The majority of the prison tattoos represent connections between the convicts. Besides gestures and mimics it is a kind of secret code – revealing why ‘informative’ tattoos appeared on uncovered body parts: face, neck or arms.

The collection was created with a view to deciphering the code – among prisoners known as a ‘pattern language’.

By looking closely at the prisoners’ tattoos, their traits, temper, past, place of residence or the criminal group in which they were involved could be determined.

The entire photo story, with the full article and image collection can be found here.

WW1: Finding the Lost Battalions

Just finished watching the very moving WW1: Finding the Lost Battalions…

In 2009, in an astonishing discovery, the bodies of 250 British and Australian World War I soldiers were found in unmarked graves near Fromelles in northern France. It’s the largest war grave to be found in Western Europe in modern times.

Channel 4 was granted exclusive access by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to document the exhumation of the soldiers’ remains and their subsequent burial in the new Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery – the first to be built in 50 years.

This film tells the story of how, over the course of a year, the bodies have been carefully exhumed and many of them identified via DNA matches with living relatives.

WWI: Finding the Lost Battalions features three British families who hope to discover whether their relatives are amongst the dead, and lay to rest family mysteries that have lasted almost a century.

Their relatives are men who went missing in action, but no confirmation of death could ever be given by the War Office. Two are from the sleepy Buckinghamshire village of The Lee, which gave most of its young men to the 2nd Bucks Battalion, whose story this film follows in particular detail.

Drawing on personal possessions found with the bodies, including a bible with handwritten annotations, a heart-shaped leather pouch and a return train ticket, as well as astonishing personal diaries and letters from the men who went missing, the film brings the horrifying truth of the Battle of Fromelles, and its impact on the subsequent generations, vividly to life.

The fighting took place at the same time as the Battle of the Somme, at the height of WWI. More than 1,500 British and 5,533 Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner during 12 hours of carnage between 19 and 20 July 1916. The Allies failed to gain an inch of ground.

Keep an eye out for it on 4OD, it should be up soon and is definitely worth a look.

The Victorian Pharmacy...

Image: Wellcome Library blog

With a growing obsession about medical history, I’m really looking forward to the first airing of the historical-observational documentary series Victorian Pharmacy tomorrow (BBC Two, 9pm). Historian Ruth Goodman, Professor Nick Barber and PhD student Tom Quick are recreating an authentic 19th-century pharmacy and the series kicks off with a look at the world of pills and potions at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837. Bring on the leeches…

In Loving Memory...

Image: We English

I watched a really interesting programme last night on BBC Two about contemporary ways of dealing with the grief of losing a loved one. ‘In Loving Memory’ examined how, as an increasingly secular country, we are moving away from the traditional setting of the church and graveyard as the locus of our grief and mourning to more individual, and often public, displays of loss. The programme features a myriad of interviewees and the ways in which they have coped with the loss of someone close – from roadside memorials to bedroom shrines and Facebook groups to memorial tattoos. An extremely emotive documentary that probes the complex emotions and needs of those who are left behind, as well as the inevitable friction caused when private grief spills into the public domain as with the case of roadside tributes, I highly recommend catching this on iPlayer if you can.

Hande with Care...

Image: Metro

Held in Chiltern Woodland Burial Park, the exhibition will run for two days from 10-11 July 2010 and will provide visitors the opportunity to visit the grounds and view a bewildering array of coffins. Manufactors of said coffins will also be on hand should you feel the sudden urge to make a purchase…for further details see the website.

Museums and restitution...

For anyone who is not attending the ‘Museums and Restitution‘ conference at the University of Manchester, but is interested in following the proceedings, then good news! The Institute of Cultural Practices will be blogging from the conference and updates will also be posted to Twitter, with the hashtag #mrest.

Stitch yourself...again!

Image: Stitch London

Remember the Stitch Yourself competition being held at the Science Museum? Well, here are the end results…259 teensy stitched people from all over the world, from Australia to Abu Dhabi. Impressive! For the rest of the story, check out the Stitch London blog here…

Stitch yourself...

Fancy taking part in the ultimate stitching and science experiment? Would you like to see your work displayed in a museum? If yes, then check out this link here to take part in whimsical competition organised by Stitch London and the Science Museum to create your very own exhibit for the forthcoming opening of their Who Am I? gallery…needles and thread at the ready!

Tattoo competition at the Wellcome Collection...

Image: Don't Panic

A slightly bonkers competition in which you can get your design tattooed on a willing museum volunteer…see here for further details!

Skin...

Image: Wellcome Collection

10 June-26 September 2010, Wellcome Collection

This exhibition invites you to re-evaluate the largest and probably most overlooked human organ. We will consider the changing importance of skin, from anatomical thought in the 16th century through to contemporary artistic exploration.

‘Skin’ takes a philosophical approach, beginning by looking at the skin as a frontier between the inside and the outside of the body. Early anatomists saw it as having little value and sought to flay it to reveal the workings of the body beneath.

The exhibition then moves to look at the skin as a living document: with tattoos, scars, wrinkles or various pathologies, our skin tells a story of our life so far. Finally, the skin is considered as a sensory organ of touch and as a delicate threshold between the public and private self.

Through shivers, sweats, blushes, wrinkles and scars, our skin provides extraordinary, visible documentation of our life. Don’t miss this extraordinary exhibition where we will consider our existence within our constantly changing skin.

Bodies, bodies and more bodies...

Two upcoming conferences on ‘the body’…

The Body on Display from Renaissance to Enlightenment, Durham University, 6-7 July 2010, http://www.bodyondisplay.org.uk/

Wrapping and Unwrapping the Body: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 20-21 May 2010,
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/archaeology/events/conference/wrapping10/

Results of Avebury consultation are announced...

Image: Odinist Press Service

After consideration of evidence and extensive consultation, English Heritage have decided that the prehistoric human remains in the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, should be kept in the museum for the benefit of public access and understanding.

These Neolithic human remains were excavated in the Avebury area by Alexander Keiller between 1929 and 1935. In 2006, Paul Davies of the Council of British Druid Orders requested their reburial. English Heritage and the National Trust followed the recently-published DCMS process in considering this request, and went out to public consultation in 2009 on a draft report which set out the evidence and different options.

English Heritage and the National Trust have now published a report on the results of this consultation, and a second report on the results of a public opinion survey. Our summary report concludes that the request should be refused for four main reasons:

The benefit to future understanding likely to result from not reburying the remains far outweighs the harm likely to result from not reburying them;

It does not meet the criteria set out by the DCMS for considering such requests;

Not reburying the remains is the more reversible option;

The public generally support the retention of prehistoric human remains in museums, and their inclusion in museum displays to increase understanding.

David Thackray, Head of Archaeology, National Trust

Sebastian Payne , Chief Scientist, English Heritage

See here for further details and here for an informative and enlightening discussion about the Pagan perspective…

Death on display...

Image: ABC News

Interesting news story on the BBC website about the iconic plaster casts of Pompeii which are the subject of a new exhibition and raising all sorts of questions about ‘dark tourism’ and the notion of the ‘real thing’…

Re-wrapping the Anonymous Man...