The kiss of death.This astonishing sculpture forms part of Barcelona’s Poblenou Cemetery. The Kiss of Death (El Petó de la Mort in Catalan and El beso de la muerte in Spanish) dates back to 1930. A winged skeleton bestows a kiss on the lips of a handsome young man: is it ecstasy on his face or resignation? Little wonder the sculpture elicits strong and varying responses from whoever gazes upon it.
Wax injected human left hand, Europe, 1831-1870
Wax has been injected into the arteries, veins and muscles to preserve the internal structure of the hand. This technique was perfected by Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731), a Dutch anatomist. The wax injection highlights the blood vessels that otherwise would be difficult to distinguish. Anatomical preparations such as this one were useful in an age when there was a lack of bodies available for dissecting. This arm may have been used as a teaching aid for medical students.
Ok, now I know these tights doesn’t look good with this jsk.
Curious History: Peculiar Pistols from the Past
Pepperbox pistols were first used in the 1500s. The unusual gun features multiple rotating barrels numbering between four and twenty four. Although they were sometimes made of one continuous piece, the barrels were often all made of separate pieces and individually removable for easy maintenance. The earliest models of this type of gun did not rotate automatically after each shot; the barrel assembly had to be rotated by hand to move the next pre-loaded barrel into position. The pepperbox pistol was the predecessor to today’s revolver, only instead of a moving cylinder these weird pistols used rotating barrels to shoot one bullet at a time.
Duckfoot pistols are even more bizarre looking, featuring multiple barrels designed to shoot all at the same time. The spread-out barrels are meant to strike multiple targets or adversaries at once. They were often used in situations where one person might be up against several enemies simultaneously, such as in the case of prison guards or sailors.
Despite looking totally awesome, the duckfoot pistol and pepperbox pistol both faded into obscurity around the time more sophisticated handguns were invented.
In Italian catacombs young girls or women that died a virgin would be buried with a crown to denote their purity. (I believe that the practice died out in the 1920s).
There is no friendship quite like the friendship between a man and his bear.
Stephen Colbert is not going to like this.
