Posted on 09/06/2013 7:15:37 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
A relic hunter dubbed 'Indiana Bones' has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe.
Art historian Paul Koudounaris hunted down and photographed dozens of gruesome skeletons in some of the world's most secretive religious establishments.
Incredibly, some of the skeletons, said to be the remains of early Christian martyrs, were even found hidden away in lock-ups and containers.
They are now the subject of a new book, which sheds light on the forgotten ornamented relics for the first time.
Thousands of skeletons were dug up from Roman catacombs in the 16th century and installed in towns around Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the orders of the Vatican.
They were sent to Catholic churches and religious houses to replace the relics destroyed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.
Mistaken for the remains of early Christian martyrs, the morbid relics, known as the Catacomb Saints, became shrines reminding of the spiritual treasures of the afterlife.
They were also symbols of the Catholic Church's newly found strength in previously Protestant areas.
Each one was painstakingly decorated in thousands of pounds worth of gold, silver and gems by devoted followers before being displayed in church niches.
Some took up to five years to decorate.
They were renamed as saints, although none of them qualified for the title under the strict rules of the Catholic church which require saints to have been canonised.
But by the 19th century they had become morbid reminders of an embarrassing past and many were stripped of their honours and discarded.
Mr Koudounaris' new book, Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, is the first time the skeletons have appeared in print.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Apparently, so does God.
Top Ten Incorrupt Corpses (Secular source).
St. Bernadette of Lourdes
(Died 1879)
St. Silvan's miraculous preservation is especially impressive, since he died over 1600 years ago.
St. Silvan
(Died 350) 
Amazon: The Incorrputibles
There you go again, making stuff up. I’ve consigned you to nothing. I simply pointed out that there is only one place, ultimately, where you would get your wish not to run into other Christians again.
Or did you forget that it was YOU, not me, who expressed that desire?
Thank you, miss marmelstein. I wish I could do more.
Amen, and Amen! My heart goes out to those who have been led down the path that leads to distruction.
I’m friends with Pam Geller in NYC - one of the most dynamic fighters against Islam in the western world. I lend my money and support to fight what is coming. I lost friends in the Holocaust of 9/11 so don’t talk to me about “holding hands.” I was there when Geert Wilders spoke against the 9/11 mosque in NYC. I’ve tried my best within my means to fight Islam. I had hoped that evangelicals would stand shoulder to shoulder against this fight but now I’m not too sure.
As for the article, is this any different from today's practice of placing ashes in beautifully adorned receptacle and setting the urn in a place of honor?
What I see here is evidence of a simple people of pure believe expressing their faith in as creative manner they could imagine.
Thanks, Trisham. We can’t always fight against hatred - we get soooooooooo tired. I’ll probably never come on a thread like this again. Which means the haters win.
You do realize you’re not looking at the “incorruptible” corpse of Bernadette in that photo right? The face and hands are wax facsimiles which were used to covered the decaying corpse underneath.
One might as well call the pieces in Madame Tussaud’s “incorruptibles”.
That’s great. I’m glad you have defied the example of your pontiffs and refused to embrace the followers of that Satanic religion.
And you know this because you were there? Or maybe you're omniscient?
Here is the testimonial from an eyewitness to her exhumation:
Doctors were at hand during these exhumations as well. In the exhumation of Bernadette the doctor, Doctor Jourdan, a surgeon, wrote this about the exhumation experience:"The coffin was opened in the presence of the Bishop of Nevers, the mayors of the town several canons and ourselves. We noticed no smell. The body was clothed in the habit of Bernadette's order. The habit was damp. Only the face, hands and forearms were uncovered. The head was tilted to the left. The face was dull white. The mouth was open slightly and it could be seen that the teeth were still in place. The hands, which were crossed upon the breast, were perfectly preserved, as were the nails. The hands still held a rusting Rosary. The veins on the forearms stood out." (Doctor Jourdan, 1909).
Good night, friend. Bless you!
Good night. Sleep well!
It's really no different, in principle.
What I see here is evidence of a simple people of pure believe expressing their faith in as creative manner they could imagine.
Agreed. At worst, it's a case of excessive piety or religious zeal.
Well, Italians ARE known for their fondness toward gaudiness. ‘;o)
I'm well-travelled, have a fine arts degree and find the long-standing fascination with human remains in the Roman Catholic Church to be disturbing, whether it's a finger bone "relic" or these wildly exuberant, bejewelled corpses. Most of humanity finds human remains disturbing in any context, you do realize this, don't you?
Leave the dead alone. Don't parade their remains around in bits and pieces, don't put them in a display case to be ogled, don't tart them up with gold leaf, doodads and cut glass tchotchkes. It's distinctly pre-Christian, to put it charitably. Less charitably, it comes across as the work of a superstitious, backward people.
Are you familiar at all with other non-Christian cultures that have practiced making "art" out of human remains? It's invariably occultic, with some form of magic or power attributed to the various objects deemed worthy of such aesthetic effort.
I suggest removing items of value from these dead bodies, sell or display such items if you must, but put the remains back where they belong, in the grave, and do not desecrate these graves again.
Leave them be.
Um... you do realize that these relics are from the 17th century, right? Not anything done in 2013, lol. And I still like ‘em!
Yes! You finally hit on it. The Italians love to put gunk on top of gunk! Some of it beautiful, some of it weird - but all of it fascinating. My favorite is still the tongue of some saint on display in some church in Bologna, I think.
Human remain are human remains. Making a spectacle of them is not Christian, is not art nor is it respectful. Return them to their resting places and resist the strange urge to dig them up and play with them again, please, no matter how pretty you think they look.
Are you SURE you have an art degree? You seem to think that dirty Catholics adorned these skeletons with jewels in 2013 rather than several centuries ago. I would advise you to look closely at the beauty of the jewelry - truly magnificent designs - although somewhat unchanged from medieval designs. And the placement of the jewelry into the skeletons is amazingly intricate and delicate. Just think of the little hands of nuns placing them! Unless, of course, that makes you bilious. I’m made of stronger stuff.
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