About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Vatican denounces Mexico Death Saint

    A senior Vatican official has condemned the cult of Santa Muerte, or Holy Death, in Mexico as “blasphemous”.

    The president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, said worshipping Santa Muerte was a “degeneration of religion”.

    Cardinal Ravasi spoke at a series of events for believers and non-believers in Mexico City.

    The cult, which reveres death, has been growing rapidly in Mexico.

    It is represented by a cloaked female skeleton clutching a scythe.

    It is particularly popular in areas of Mexico that have suffered from extreme violence carried out by the country’s drug cartels.

    The cult is believed to date back to colonial times.

    It merges indigenous beliefs with the tradition of venerating saints introduced by Christian missionaries after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

    (Source: BBC News)

    ‘La Santa Muerte’ spreading across US after years linked to Mexico drug cartels, love, magic “All my success … I owe to her,” he said. “She cleansed me and showed me the way.” Some devotees pray to the saint by building altars and offering votive candles, fruits, tequila, cigarettes — even lines of cocaine in some cases — in exchange for wishes, Chesnut said. A red La Santa Muerte, her best-selling image, helps in matters of love. Gold ones aid with employment and white ones give protection. Meanwhile, a black Santa Muerte can provide vengeance. “She’s my queen,” said Arely Vazquez Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant and transgender woman who oversees a large altar inside her Queens, New York apartment. Against one wall of her bedroom altar is a tall, sitting Santa Muerte statue in a black dress surrounded by offerings of tequila. Gonzalez, who sports a tattoo of La Santa Muerte on her back, holds an annual event in August in the saint’s honor, with mariachis and a feast. “All I have to do I ask for her guidance and she provides me with what I need,” she said. Read more here.

    ‘La Santa Muerte’ spreading across US after years linked to Mexico drug cartels, love, magic

    “All my success … I owe to her,” he said. “She cleansed me and showed me the way.”

    Some devotees pray to the saint by building altars and offering votive candles, fruits, tequila, cigarettes — even lines of cocaine in some cases — in exchange for wishes, Chesnut said. A red La Santa Muerte, her best-selling image, helps in matters of love. Gold ones aid with employment and white ones give protection. Meanwhile, a black Santa Muerte can provide vengeance.

    “She’s my queen,” said Arely Vazquez Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant and transgender woman who oversees a large altar inside her Queens, New York apartment. Against one wall of her bedroom altar is a tall, sitting Santa Muerte statue in a black dress surrounded by offerings of tequila.

    Gonzalez, who sports a tattoo of La Santa Muerte on her back, holds an annual event in August in the saint’s honor, with mariachis and a feast.

    “All I have to do I ask for her guidance and she provides me with what I need,” she said.

    Read more here.

    Body of ‘Ugliest Woman in the World’ returns to her birthplace in Mexico for burial more than 150 years after her death A woman branded the ‘ugliest woman in the world’ after a rare disease left her body covered in hair has finally returned to her birthplace in Mexico for a proper burial - 153 years after her death. Julia Pastrana was exploited as part of a traveling exhibition through Europe until she died from complications of childbirth in 1860. Even after her death, her body was exhibited across the world. It eventually ended up in a storage room at an Oslo research institute, and after learning of the body’s whereabouts, visual artist Laura Anderson Barbata campaigned to have it returned to Mexico. ‘I felt she deserved the right to regain her dignity and her place in history, and in the world’s memory,’ Barbata, who learned Pastrana’s story while working on a play about her life, told the New York Times. ‘I hoped to help change her position as a victim to one where she can be seen in her entirety and complexity.’ Barbata, who lives in New York but hails from Mexico City, eventually won her decade-long battle and on Tuesday, Pastrana’s body will finally be buried in Sinaloa de Leyva. Pastrana was born in Mexico in 1834 and suffered from congenital terminal hypertrichosis, which left her face and body covered in thick hair. She also suffered from gingival hyperplasia, which made her lips and gums thick. She was not diagnosed with either condition in her lifetime. In 1854, she was bought by a Mexican customs administrator and he began exhibiting her through the U.S. and Canada. While in New York, she married Theodore Lent, who became her manager. Historians believe that while she was in love with Lent, he only married her to control her earnings, the New York Times reported. Read more here.

    Body of ‘Ugliest Woman in the World’ returns to her birthplace in Mexico for burial more than 150 years after her death

    A woman branded the ‘ugliest woman in the world’ after a rare disease left her body covered in hair has finally returned to her birthplace in Mexico for a proper burial - 153 years after her death.

    Julia Pastrana was exploited as part of a traveling exhibition through Europe until she died from complications of childbirth in 1860. Even after her death, her body was exhibited across the world.

    It eventually ended up in a storage room at an Oslo research institute, and after learning of the body’s whereabouts, visual artist Laura Anderson Barbata campaigned to have it returned to Mexico.

    ‘I felt she deserved the right to regain her dignity and her place in history, and in the world’s memory,’ Barbata, who learned Pastrana’s story while working on a play about her life, told the New York Times.

    ‘I hoped to help change her position as a victim to one where she can be seen in her entirety and complexity.’

    Barbata, who lives in New York but hails from Mexico City, eventually won her decade-long battle and on Tuesday, Pastrana’s body will finally be buried in Sinaloa de Leyva.

    Pastrana was born in Mexico in 1834 and suffered from congenital terminal hypertrichosis, which left her face and body covered in thick hair.

    She also suffered from gingival hyperplasia, which made her lips and gums thick. She was not diagnosed with either condition in her lifetime.

    In 1854, she was bought by a Mexican customs administrator and he began exhibiting her through the U.S. and Canada. While in New York, she married Theodore Lent, who became her manager.

    Historians believe that while she was in love with Lent, he only married her to control her earnings, the New York Times reported.

    Read more here.

    The 150 Mexican skulls that reveal the largest mass sacrifice in the region’s bloody history What could be the site of the largest mass human sacrifice in the bloody history of Mexico’s ancient civilisations has been discovered. Archaeologists working at the site near to Mexico City have so far unearthed 150 skulls with just one or two vertaebrae attached - suggesting they were hacked off the victims. Dated to between 600 and 850AD, the skulls were found in an area miles from the nearest large city of the day, and researchers say the discovery could challenge existing notions about the area’s ancient culture. ‘It’s absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America,’ said Christopher Morehart of Georgia State University. Read more here.

    The 150 Mexican skulls that reveal the largest mass sacrifice in the region’s bloody history

    What could be the site of the largest mass human sacrifice in the bloody history of Mexico’s ancient civilisations has been discovered.

    Archaeologists working at the site near to Mexico City have so far unearthed 150 skulls with just one or two vertaebrae attached - suggesting they were hacked off the victims.

    Dated to between 600 and 850AD, the skulls were found in an area miles from the nearest large city of the day, and researchers say the discovery could challenge existing notions about the area’s ancient culture.

    ‘It’s absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America,’ said Christopher Morehart of Georgia State University.

    Read more here.

    Archaeological dig finds that ancient groups incinerated and buried their departed in pots

    archaeologicalnews:

    image

    MEXICO CITY.- Researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta) keep acquiring knowledge of funerary practices in the ancient groups that inhabited the north of Sonora, such as the incineration and burial (in pots) of their departed, a custom that has been…

    Mass Human Sacrifice? Pile of Ancient Skulls Found

    archaeologicalnews:

    Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.

    The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin…

    PALENQUE’S RED QUEEN The skeletal remains of the so-called ‘Red Queen’, the enigmatic individual discovered at Palenque, in Mexico, are being scientifically analysed using a number of techniques. It is still unclear whether the Red Queen who died 1,300 years ago, was the wife of Pakal II or if she was a ruler of the ancient Mayan metropolis once known as Lakamha (place of the big waters). In a recent interview Lourdes Muñoz explained that before the remains of the Red Queen were returned to Palenque, in June 2012, they managed to extract a collagen sample from one of her vertebrae for further studies. Javiera Cervini, a specialist in geochemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, examined the sample and was convinced that the preservation of the collagen fibres from the vertebrae was good enough to progress and attempt to extract DNA. Although it’s not the first time that the Red Queen’s remains have been subject to study, this recent investigation  is also utilising DNA mitochondrional examination to provide new information about this mysterious figure in Mayan history. The tombs of both the Red Queen and Pakal II are the largest and most elaborate of all those discovered in the ancient Mayan city of Palenque. Both have been archaeologically dated by the type of ceramic offerings found in both – to between 600 and 700 CE. Amazing picture. Read more here!

    PALENQUE’S RED QUEEN

    The skeletal remains of the so-called ‘Red Queen’, the enigmatic individual discovered at Palenque, in Mexico, are being scientifically analysed using a number of techniques.

    It is still unclear whether the Red Queen who died 1,300 years ago, was the wife of Pakal II or if she was a ruler of the ancient Mayan metropolis once known as Lakamha (place of the big waters).

    In a recent interview Lourdes Muñoz explained that before the remains of the Red Queen were returned to Palenque, in June 2012, they managed to extract a collagen sample from one of her vertebrae for further studies.

    Javiera Cervini, a specialist in geochemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, examined the sample and was convinced that the preservation of the collagen fibres from the vertebrae was good enough to progress and attempt to extract DNA.

    Although it’s not the first time that the Red Queen’s remains have been subject to study, this recent investigation  is also utilising DNA mitochondrional examination to provide new information about this mysterious figure in Mayan history.

    The tombs of both the Red Queen and Pakal II are the largest and most elaborate of all those discovered in the ancient Mayan city of Palenque. Both have been archaeologically dated by the type of ceramic offerings found in both – to between 600 and 700 CE.

    Amazing picture. Read more here!

    Archaeologists digging in a 1,000-year-old pre-Hispanic cemetery in Mexico’s South Sonora have uncovered a series of skeletons featuring signs of cranial deformation. The practice, which is well documented among Mesoamerican peoples, has never been seen this far north before — a strong indication that their cultural influence was far more prominent than previously assumed. The ancient burial ground, which is being excavated by Garcia Moreno on behalf of Arizona State University and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), consists of 25 individuals, 13 of which exhibit intentional cranial deformations. Also called head binding or head flattening, the practice was likely done to signify group affiliation or as a way to demonstrate social status. It may have also been seen as something aesthetically pleasing. Read more here!

    Archaeologists digging in a 1,000-year-old pre-Hispanic cemetery in Mexico’s South Sonora have uncovered a series of skeletons featuring signs of cranial deformation. The practice, which is well documented among Mesoamerican peoples, has never been seen this far north before — a strong indication that their cultural influence was far more prominent than previously assumed.

    The ancient burial ground, which is being excavated by Garcia Moreno on behalf of Arizona State University and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), consists of 25 individuals, 13 of which exhibit intentional cranial deformations.

    Also called head binding or head flattening, the practice was likely done to signify group affiliation or as a way to demonstrate social status. It may have also been seen as something aesthetically pleasing.

    Read more here!

    Sugar skulls and ‘rotten’ bananas: Mexico’s surprising tastes Mexico’s culinary traditions and new flavours are finding new audiences as people around the world celebrate Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead). It’s unlikely that the first thing that springs to mind when you think of Mexican food is a dish of fermented banana. But this flavour is quintessentially Mexican, says chef Enrique Olvera. Mr Olvera serves what he fondly refers to as “rotten bananas” at his restaurant Pujol, in Mexico City. He says one of his strongest childhood food memories is that of his grandmother serving practically black bananas, and it is this distinctly Mexican flavour that he recreates. Read more here!

    Sugar skulls and ‘rotten’ bananas: Mexico’s surprising tastes

    Mexico’s culinary traditions and new flavours are finding new audiences as people around the world celebrate Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead).

    It’s unlikely that the first thing that springs to mind when you think of Mexican food is a dish of fermented banana.

    But this flavour is quintessentially Mexican, says chef Enrique Olvera.

    Mr Olvera serves what he fondly refers to as “rotten bananas” at his restaurant Pujol, in Mexico City.

    He says one of his strongest childhood food memories is that of his grandmother serving practically black bananas, and it is this distinctly Mexican flavour that he recreates.

    Read more here!

    Day of the Dead: From Mexico City to London Town The Day of the Dead celebrates the lives of loved ones who have died while also reminding people about their own mortality. The festival, which is known as “Dia de Muertos” in Spanish, is traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2 in Mexico. Seen as a fusion of Catholic and indigenous cultures, the festival is characterised by altars, visits to graves and celebrations with traditional food and music. But the festival is no longer only found in Mexico, with festivals cropping up in cities around Britain. Read more here!

    Day of the Dead: From Mexico City to London Town

    The Day of the Dead celebrates the lives of loved ones who have died while also reminding people about their own mortality.

    The festival, which is known as “Dia de Muertos” in Spanish, is traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2 in Mexico.

    Seen as a fusion of Catholic and indigenous cultures, the festival is characterised by altars, visits to graves and celebrations with traditional food and music.

    But the festival is no longer only found in Mexico, with festivals cropping up in cities around Britain.

    Read more here!

    Santa Muerte, San la Muerte and The Fascinating History of Death Personified in Latin America I took the photos you see above over a series of trips to Los Angeles to document the fascinating phenomonon of Santa Muerte, a sacred figure worshipped as part of the larger pantheon of Catholic saints in Mexico and now also, with the wave of Mexican migrants, in the United States as well. Thought to have its roots in a syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics, the name literally means “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” and she—also fondly referred to as “The Skinny Lady—tends to be worshipped by disenfranchised members of society such as criminals, prostitutes, transvestites, the very poor, and other people for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life.Doing some research into the matter, I recently stumbled upon Frank Graziano’s Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America, which offers fascinating insight into the genesis of both Santa Muerte and the very similar San La Muerte tradition, which developed independently from a similar native/Catholic syncretism in other areas of Latin America; I also would give anything to see one of the bizarre theatrical productions described below: In the Jesuit missions, the publication of many books included, in 1705, a translation of Juan Eusebio Nieremberg’s De la Diferencia Entre lo Temporal y Eterno.Among the engravings in the book was one of a triumphant personified death, holding a sickle (a variation on the scythe) in one and and an hourglass in the other. Death as a skeleton also appears in another image, which was likewise copied from a European original.  These engravings document the presence of the Grim Reaper in the missions, but more important in folk culture were theatrical productions staged by the Jesuits for the Guaranís’ religious instruction. The performances often included Christ’s resurrection, with props of skulls and bones and with the Grim Reaper in the supporting cast for dramatization of Christ’s triumph over death. Such performances contributed to fixing the personified image of death within a religious context.  Almost all the artists in Jesuit missions were Guaranís who were trained by Europeans. These indigenous carvers of saints thought of their work more religiously than artistically: “Image-makers quite literally believed that they were making saints and gods.” This observation is particularly suggestive in the context of San La Muerte, whose traditionalal carvers were likewise creating, not representing, a supernatural power. For the Guaraní mission artists, “The reality of things was not expressed by imitating their visual appearance, as in European art, but by capturing their essence.” The imagery, including the image of death personified, was adopted from European traditions and then invested with this “essence.” The carvings transcend mere representation and become empowered in themselves like amulets. All of this also brings to mind the wonderful 18th century book La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death); more on that here.All photos you see above are from my trips to Los Angeles to document the Santa Muerta phenomenon; for more, click here to see my complete Flickr set. From the amazing Morbid Anatomy - be sure to check out the blog!

    Santa Muerte, San la Muerte and The Fascinating History of Death Personified in Latin America

    I took the photos you see above over a series of trips to Los Angeles to document the fascinating phenomonon of Santa Muerte, a sacred figure worshipped as part of the larger pantheon of Catholic saints in Mexico and now also, with the wave of Mexican migrants, in the United States as well. Thought to have its roots in a syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics, the name literally means “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” and she—also fondly referred to as “The Skinny Lady—tends to be worshipped by disenfranchised members of society such as criminals, prostitutes, transvestites, the very poor, and other people for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life.

    Doing some research into the matter, I recently stumbled upon Frank Graziano’s Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America, which offers fascinating insight into the genesis of both Santa Muerte and the very similar San La Muerte tradition, which developed independently from a similar native/Catholic syncretism in other areas of Latin America; I also would give anything to see one of the bizarre theatrical productions described below:
    In the Jesuit missions, the publication of many books included, in 1705, a translation of Juan Eusebio Nieremberg’s De la Diferencia Entre lo Temporal y Eterno.Among the engravings in the book was one of a triumphant personified death, holding a sickle (a variation on the scythe) in one and and an hourglass in the other. Death as a skeleton also appears in another image, which was likewise copied from a European original. 
    These engravings document the presence of the Grim Reaper in the missions, but more important in folk culture were theatrical productions staged by the Jesuits for the Guaranís’ religious instruction. The performances often included Christ’s resurrection, with props of skulls and bones and with the Grim Reaper in the supporting cast for dramatization of Christ’s triumph over death. Such performances contributed to fixing the personified image of death within a religious context. 
    Almost all the artists in Jesuit missions were Guaranís who were trained by Europeans. These indigenous carvers of saints thought of their work more religiously than artistically: “Image-makers quite literally believed that they were making saints and gods.” This observation is particularly suggestive in the context of San La Muerte, whose traditionalal carvers were likewise creating, not representing, a supernatural power. For the Guaraní mission artists, “The reality of things was not expressed by imitating their visual appearance, as in European art, but by capturing their essence.” The imagery, including the image of death personified, was adopted from European traditions and then invested with this “essence.” The carvings transcend mere representation and become empowered in themselves like amulets.

    All of this also brings to mind the wonderful 18th century book La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death); more on that here.

    All photos you see above are from my trips to Los Angeles to document the Santa Muerta phenomenon; for more, click here to see my complete Flickr set.

    From the amazing Morbid Anatomy - be sure to check out the blog!

    Deep in the Earth, A Tower for the Dead

    Israel Lopez, Elsa Mendoza Andres and Moises Adrian submitted their design for an inverted vertical eco-graveyard to the Evolo’s 2011 Skyscraper Competition and received honorable mention for the concept. The “Tower of the Dead” project proposes that an underground cemetery would be a practical solution for freeing up valuable space in crowded Mexico City and is meant to be an architectural representation of the grieving process. The idea is that family members will feel symbolically reborn once they return from their trip to the underworld where they laid their loved one to rest.

    This sounds just…AMAZING! Click here for the rest of the article!

    Mysterious 1200AD temple under Mexico City has bodies of 15 children - and a dog slain to keep them company in the afterlife  Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times.  The mysterious mass grave had a ceremonial purpose, researchers say - and the children were surrounded by religious items including a dog sacrificed to ‘keep them company.’ It pains me to link to stories from the Daily Mail, it really does, but this is an interesting discovery and so needs must!

    Mysterious 1200AD temple under Mexico City has bodies of 15 children - and a dog slain to keep them company in the afterlife 

    Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times. 

    The mysterious mass grave had a ceremonial purpose, researchers say - and the children were surrounded by religious items including a dog sacrificed to ‘keep them company.’

    It pains me to link to stories from the Daily Mail, it really does, but this is an interesting discovery and so needs must!

    Mexico mass grave was 'ancient cemetery' in Chiapas

    Anthropologists in Mexico say the remains of 167 bodies found in a cave in the southern state of Chiapas were part of an ancient burial ground.

    The National Anthropology Institute said tests showed the remains dated back to the eighth century.

    Scientists hope pottery found in the cave will help them determine the community those buried belonged to.

    Mexico's Mayan region launches apocalypse countdown

    Only 52 weeks and a day are left before Dec. 21, 2012, when some believe the Maya predicted the end of the world.

    Unlike enthusiasts of other doomsday theories who suggest putting together survival kits, southeastern Mexico, the heart of Maya territory, plans a yearlong celebration.

    Mexico’s tourism agency expects to draw 52 million visitors by next year only to the regions of Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche. All of Mexico usually lures about 22 million foreigners in a year.

    It’s selling the date, the Winter Solstice in the coming year, as a time of renewal. Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.

    “The world will not end. It is an era,” said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. “For us, it is a message of hope.”

    Cities and towns in the Mayan region on Wednesday will start the yearlong countdown. In Chiapas the town of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border will start a countdown on an 8-foot digital clock in the main park exactly a year before the mysterious date.

    Hopefully, I *will* make it to Mexico this year (hurricanes and personal disasters pending…) and I shall look forward to seeing this!