Taxidermy is all about preservation. In many people's minds, including myself, it would be much too morbid. However, remembering the dead through preservation has been a recurring line of thought in cultures such as in ancient Egypt and Russia. Today, people taxidermy their pets just like the ancient Egyptians mummified animals. Taxidermy involves rearranging and preserving only the skin on a frame, which is not always successful. For this reason (along with sociological, ethical, and legal concerns) taxidermy is not performed on humans.
Friday, 8 February 2013
Why Don't We Taxidermy Humans?
While cremation, donation to science and burial are the first three
ways I think of for what to do with corpses, there are alternatives that include being turned into a diamond, frozen, or "buried" on the moon.
Some of these ideas are laid out in VSauce's video "Why Don't We Taxidermy
Humans?"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHuman taxidermy is an approach I never really thought of. It's interesting that you mentioned legality, I tried searching for laws prohibiting the practice in Canada but all I could find were ambiguous statements about the selling or possession of human remains being an indignity. In the US it appears that possessing human remains beyond ashes is considered hazardous waste, though I don't see how that is much different from possessing animal remains (at least in terms of physical hazards).
ReplyDelete