We thought this fun thing might be of interest to the members of this group. If you could steal a skull, any skull, whose would you choose, and why?
Cranioklepty (the theft of skulls) has fallen out of fashion, but it wasn’t very long ago that stealing skulls was viewed by some as akin to possessing genius. Colin Dickey’s forthcoming CRANIOKLEPTY: GRAVE ROBBING AND THE SEARCH FOR GENIUS (Pub date: September 29, 2009) takes us on an extraordinary history of a peculiar kind of obsession. The after-death stories of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sir Thomas Browne and many others have never before been told in such detail and vividness. Fully illustrated with some surprising images, this is a fascinating and authoritative history of ideas carried along on the guilty pleasures of real-after-life gothic tales. The desire to own the skulls of the famous, for study, for sale, for public (and private) display, seems to be instinctual and irresistible in some people. So we ask again, WHOSE SKULL WOULD YOU DIG?
Send us your choice—by responding to this discussion, leaving a public note on our profile, or via email (cranioklepty@gmail.com) between September 9 and October 21, 2009. We’ll be posting the most lively ones (no pun intended) and as a thank you, we’ll be sending a copy of CRANIOKLEPTY to the folks whose selections most intrigued us. Winners will be announced on October 31, 2009 (yes, on Halloween). For complete rules and regulations visit http://cranioklepty.com/pick-a-skull/rules-and-regulations/. We do not, for the record, endorse the actual stealing of skulls!
Looking forward to reading which skulls you unearth!
