Hailing from fifteen countries, the individuals participating in Eyes as Big as Plates have backgrounds as varied as their surroundings: there are zoologists, academics, and librarians; fishermen, wild boar hunters, and Sami reindeer herders; and opera singers, kantele players, and artists. They’re tethered by the ongoing project, which dresses each figure in sculptural wearables madeContinue reading "In ‘Eyes as Big as Plates,’ Sculptural Garments Camouflage Subjects in Natural…

How can we be certain that Ireland’s bog bodies were the result of human sacrifice?

Recent bog body discoveries from Ireland, including the latest bog body from Cul na Mona, Co. Laois as well as Old Croghan man and Clonycavan man bog bodies.

Elling Woman - Wikipedia - Bog Body

Tollund Man is the naturally mummified body of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was hanged as a sacrifice to the gods and placed in a peat bog where he remained preserved for more than two millennia. Today, the face of the Tollund Man is as preserved as the day he died.

Concept illustration from 2016 for a personal project.

A cavernous wound gapes on Grauballe Man’s throat, cut with such force that the blade nicked a vertebra in his neck. Researchers once thought other damage done to the body meant he was tortured before execution. But recent study has shown that his bones broke during long burial in a Danish bog.

(warning: this article features an image of mummified human remains) In general, I don't consider myself to be the morbid type. I've never had a particular fascination with death and the majority of exhibits centered around human remains--like Body Worlds, for example--fail to pique my interest. So a few years ago, when I started researching…