The Memento Mori

I have recently watched Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls and oh, what glorious fun it is! In addition to the evergreen Harrison Ford, the plot draws together a number of strands involving archaeology and mythology and intriguingly, the crystal skull. In the narrative, there is at least one reference to explorer FA Mitchell-Hedges, who claimed to have found an iconic crystal skull in South America in the 1920’s. Controversy surrounds the skull: Mitchell-Hedges did not present it to the world until the 1940’s and it has since been found to bear modern tool markings. Whatever the truth, there is no doubting the emotive response to a skull. The most fundamental part of our anatomies, it encases our thinking organ and four out of five of our sense organs. No wonder then that devoid of our fleshly bits, it has become the symbol for death, horror and Halloween. The Mexican nation has placed it as the central symbol for their Day of the Dead rituals and in the seventeenth century, artists made it the centre piece of the memento mori. You know the type of painting, a lush arrangement of luxury (by seventeenth-century standards) items, books, musical instruments, jewels and, plonked in their midst, a great and grinning skull, a reminder of the end we all come to. On that cheerful note, I will finish. Look out for my next gothic preamble.