"Bones With Bling" in Fortean Times

Via Morbid Anatomy (which you should be reading if you like the morbid, odd, and peculiar), there's an article in the Fortean Times on "the amazing jewelled skeletons of Europe," titled Bones with Bling.

I'm not likely to link to Fortean Times very often, but this is an interesting piece about a forgotten part of Catholic Christian history, when supposedly psychic priests would "discover" the bones of saints and martyrs which would then be lavishly decorated as relics. Of course, many of the skeletons had probably belonged to ordinary people--even pagans--but more saintly relics meant greater prestige for the Church and could mean increasing attendance (and therefore wealth) at smaller churches.

Whether these bones belonged to holy people or ordinary people, they certainly make beautiful displays.

OsteoSophy on Etsy

I added intercaps in the name, mostly because it looked nicer on the banner. So, yeah. I opened (another) Etsy shop to sell my new line of copper animal skull jewellery (because I don't already have too many things to do).

Here are the first few items for sale (and after this, I probably won't mention this stuff again, unless I make something really exciting, but I will add a widget or link or something to the sidebar).

First, I made a thylacine (above, posing on a whitetail deer skull), because everyone needs a thylacine. Right?

 Then a fox, which I really made for myself. I listed it for sale, but if someone buys it, I'll have to make another for me.

 A badger, which never fails to lodge that silly song "badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, mushroom, mushroom" in my head (don't know what I'm talking about? go here).

Finally, a snowshoe hare, because things other than carnivores have cool skulls, too. I've got a whole pile of drawings ready to resize so I can make more--deer, goat, dolphin, bear, various birds, some herps. Eventually I'll add some dinosaurs.