Tech UPTechnologyWhere is Shakespeare's skull?

Where is Shakespeare's skull?

Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon (better known as ‘Shakespeare’s Church’) has never allowed the tomb to be excavated , no matter how many researchers asked permission, as they wanted to fulfill the poet’s last wish, that he left diaphanous in the verses chiseled on the slab of his tomb: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebeare/To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones ( Good friend, by Jesus, refrain from digging the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man who respects these stones and cursed be he who moves my bones )”.

It is a curious tomb, because unlike those of his relatives, located on one side and the other, the poet ‘s is the only one that does not have a name . In addition, the slab is the smallest of all. Radar revealed that both the five graves are shallow, approximately one meter, and no signs of metal, such as coffin nails, were found; this has led to suspicion that he was probably buried in a shroud . But the most intriguing finding is that the place where the writer’s head should be appeared to have been altered, as if it had been excavated. This is what led to the suspicion that the head was missing. Unfortunately, georadar doesn’t identify bones, so the researchers couldn’t be 100 percent sure.

Interestingly, the find fits with a story that has been circulating for more than a century. In 1879, the Reverend Charles Jones Langston published the article “How Shakespeare’s Skull Was Stolen” in Argosy , America’s first pulp magazine. In it he recounted what had supposedly happened a hundred years earlier: in 1794 a doctor named Frank Chambers commissioned grave robbers to steal the poet’s skull . No one took this story seriously; first because of the place where it was published, a cheap and very popular magazine; second, because it gave some details that were considered impossible, such as the fact that the tomb was one meter deep or that the body was buried directly on the ground. Which is just as found.

In a later little book titled “How Shakespeare’s Skull Was Lost and Found” (1884), Langston suggested that Chambers had a panic attack and hid the skull in St. Leonard’s Church in Beoley , a small town just 15 miles from Stratford. More specifically in the crypt of the Sheldon family that is located under the chapel that bears his name. In it there are seven members of the family buried along with four unidentified skeletons. But it is that, in addition, in a small chamber embedded in the wall of the crypt there is a skull. Was it William Shakespeare’s? The forensic analysis carried out by the same team from the Archeology Center ruled that it had belonged to a 70-year-old woman. Shakespeare’s skull is still missing .

It may seem surprising, but the theft of parts of famous people has been common throughout history. We have an example in the skull of the composer Joseph Haydn, which was stolen to study it from the point of view of phrenology, a pseudoscience very fashionable in the 19th century that supposed that personality could be deduced from the shape of the skull. After a series of incidents, including a big change, a skull that was not the musician’s ended up in his grave in 1820 and finally in 1954 the real one was able to rest next to his body. But the fake was not removed, making Haydn’s grave unique: it contains a body and two skulls . In 1918 six members of the Yale University Skull and Bones secret society desecrated the tomb of the famous Apache leader Geronimo and took his head, which has not reappeared, nor has that of the famous Mata Hari , Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod-Zelle, shot by the French for being a spy during the First World War. After his death, his body was sent to the Musée d’Anatomy in Paris which exhibited a collection of more than 5,000 skulls and other body parts of famous criminals: from there his head flew.

Brains also disappear , such as that of the thirty-fifth president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. After the autopsy, the brain was placed in a stainless steel jar and locked in a file cabinet in the Executive Office of the President. In 1965, along with other remains such as histological sections and blood smears, it was transferred to the National Archives at the request of his brother, Robert Kennedy. On October 31, 1966, it was discovered that the brain and all biological material had disappeared

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