An embroidered skeleton in a gold coffin shaped mount against a green wall

Today has been a day of editing, watched over by this very sweet we chap from @crimsonpins.bsky.social

Shelves of skulls

Charnels like this stopped being used in England after the reformation, and were sealed or emptied. This one was sealed up. It was rediscovered in 1700, apparently when a gravedigger ‘was wielding his mattock, probably with unusual energy, and suddenly found himself precipitated into a dark abyss.’

An arched vault with a pile of bones in front of shelves of skulls

The bone crypt of Rothwell Holy Trinity Church. It’s been a few years since I was last here so think I’m about due a return visit. The crypt itself dates to the early thirteenth century, and would have been used to store bones dug up from the graveyard to make way for new graves.

A wax model of a male head with a thin dark moustache tilted back. The jaw and front of the throat are removed and five coloured ribbons are attached stretching downwards

A wax model showing the anatomy of the throat. The coloured ribbons are connected to labels which identify the structures. You can find it in the Brussels Musée de la Médecine

Dissected from History - Edinburgh Science Join Cat Irving, Human Remains Conservator at Surgeons' Hall and Sophie Goggins, Senior Curator of Biomedical Science at the National Museum of Scotland to discover the hidden stories of some importan...

I’m speaking at the Science Festival on Tuesday!

www.edinburghscience.co.uk/event/dissec...

A wax model showing a head severed at the neck. The face is of a man with eye closed and lips slightly open. The skin is pulled down, shading the eyes. The brain can be seen. The model is on an ebonised base against a background of Yves Klein blue.

A wax model showing the skin reflected back and the top section of the skull removed to reveal the brain. It was one of the many beautiful models made by Joseph Towne during his fifty-three years working at Guy’s hospital in the nineteenth century

This event will be brilliant - come along if you’re in Edinburgh or environs!

That first photo does look like I’m summoning a demon. Which is one of my better looks…!

Just spotted my pal Cat on TV being interviewed by Vicky McClure. She is a bloody brilliant human being.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I’ll sign one of Dan’s photos of his lunch…

Talking Burke, Hare and body dissection with Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen for Sky History’s Britain’s Murder Map!

James Legg shot and killed a colleague during an argument. This was the time of the Murder Act, and the judge sentenced him to be hanged and anatomised. After his execution, Legg was positioned to mimic crucifixion, and his body flayed. Banks then took a cast, now in the Royal Academy.

A pale brick wall with a black crucifix mounted on it. On the crucifix is a flayed plaster figure.

Artists have long studied anatomy to try and make their work more realistic. In 1801 sculptor Thomas Banks and painters Benjamin West and Richard Cosway decided to look at the anatomical accuracy of depictions of Christ being crucified.

A figure of a death as an anthropomorphised death in a robe clutching an arrow in grey stone the foreground with a red stone gothic building behind.

A rather sneaky memento mori figure with his arrow in the cloister of Mainz Cathedral

A figure of a death as an anthropomorphised death in a robe clutching an arrow in grey stone the foreground with a red stone gothic building behind.

Gasp!

A mirror in the shape of a gothic window set against a grey wall. There is a roundel with a portrait of a man in the arch. The reflective surface of the mirror is very degraded and you can just make out a woman with long red hair stood in front of a portrait.

Haunted self portrait

A wax model of the head seen from the right side and dissected. It is positioned on a white cloth on a wooden board.

One of my first conversations when back at work after a couple of weeks away was about anatomical models, so here’s a beautiful one. Made by Clemente Susini in eighteenth century Florence, it shows the anatomy of the head and neck, and can now be seen in La Specola in Florence.

A model of a dissected figure photographed from mid torso upwards. The head is turned towards the viewer. The background is a golden wood.

Another of Louis Auzoux’s dissectible papier-mâché mannequins, this time in the Musée d’histoire de la Médecine in Paris 🖤

Poster with an illustration of a dissected body and the text Then and Now A history of Dissection and Body Donation with Professor Paul Rea and Cat Irving 12th May 2026 Lecture Theatre 236 Thomson Building University of Glasgow

Coming to Glasgow in May!

www.eventbrite.com/e/then-and-n...

Our new events programme has launched!

Our spring programme is incredibly varied- from vaping to 300 years of Edinburgh Medical School.

🧵👇

Black background with the cover of the Routledge Book on the left. The cover depicts a momento mori carving of a skull wearing a flower crown with an hour glass next to it. There is white and red text to the right of the image which reads: Dissecting the Author. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death. Online Event. Thursday 7 May. 7pm

Cat Irving (@anatomicalcat.bsky.social) will be joined by Katie Stringer, one of the editors of The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage and Death, for a discussion of the themes and ideas explored in this landmark publication.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dissecting...

Maroon background surrounded by a decorative gold frame. There is white text in the middle with reads: Lunch Time Talk: Anatomy and Crucifixion Imagery in Art. Thursday the 14th of May. 1.15pm

In this talk, Human Remains Conservator @anatomicalcat.bsky.social explores how anatomical knowledge has influenced artistic attempts to understand and depict the physical realities of crucifixion.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lunch-time...

A wax model showing the head in sagittal section.

Anatomical models made by surgeon André-Pierre Pinson in the late eighteenth century on display in the Musée de l’Homme, Paris. Looking forward to being back in Paris next week!

Steps lined with human skulls. Behind is a wall of bones.

On the lower floor of Michaelskapelle in Iphofen, Germany, you can find the only remaining ossuary in Lower Franconia. It was an extraordinary place to visit yesterday.

A wonderful memento mori figure at the base of a crucifix in the museum of Mainz cathedral.

A black wall tomb with a white skeleton holding up a black sheet.

Met this rather lovely skeleton on a seventeenth century tomb in Liège Cathedral today…

We made a stop in Liége today to see Guillaume Geefs’ ‘Le génie du mal’, known to the internet as Stupid Sexy Satan. It’s quite a thing to behold but in person you see some easily-missed details…