The Hyena men aka Gadawan Kura

After Pieter Hugo saw a Nigerian newspaper with a picture in it, 
taken out of a cellphone showing a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains,
and the caption "the streets of Lagos" with the report that the men were bank robbers, bodyguards , drug dealers and dept collectors , he got in contact with a niderian reporter wich said he knew the " Gadawan Kura" . They went to Abuja to meet this by myths surrounded group that was living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown.
A group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons.It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels , performers who used  the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditionell medicines.They were all realted to each other and practising a tradition passed down from generation to generation.

Cemetery Essaouira

While my stay in Essaouira i had the luck to live between the christian Cemetery , the Jewish Cemetery and the Prison ! Sadly i didnt made it to the Jewish one but here are some pictures from the christians....

                            I met a Cemeteryturtle ! Long living guardian of the dead...

 

Euphonia

                                 
In 1840 Joseph Faber invented the Talking Machine known as “Euphonia,” wich was able to speak sentences in a human if monotone voice (and it was able to sing "god save the queen) . 
It is a speech synthesizer. Faber studied language and human vocal anatomy in order to break them down into parts and then reorganize them mechanically.  
The Euphonia operated by “By pumping air with the bellows and using different combinations of 16 keys to manipulate a series of plates, chambers, and other apparatus including an artificial tongue. If you havent yet, you should look up "automaton" on the internet , there are lots of videos too......

The monster of Crackow

"Monster of Crackow", a child apperently born with a devilish face and tail, claws instead of hands , eyes on his stomach, and animal heads growing from his elbows, knees, and chest. 
It reputedly died four hours after its birth, but not without warning, "Watch, the Lord cometh." 

By the time this monster was "born," Luther and Philipp Melanchthon had published pamphlets about other monsters engendered by divine displeasure with the papacy. Convictions that heretical beliefs were on the rise , likely played a role in the appearance of this beast.

Pica

The above photograph is the stomach contents of a psychiatric inpatient with pica.

The rare disoreder Pica is characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive, such as clay, chalk, dirt, or sand etc. Even nails as you can see or glass. Some doctors believe the culprit may be a mineral deficiency. But for more information just read :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_%28disorder%29

Waterloo Teeth

Human teeth were in great demand for dentures during the Victorian period. Teeth pulled from willing volunteers could not meet the demand. A grislier source were bodies from European battlefields. Such teeth were known as ‘Waterloo teeth’ for much of the 1800s.  This denture also has human teeth fixed into it. It was made for the lower jaw and is carved from hippopotamus ivory. Ivory was expensive and could only be afforded by the wealthy.

Blanche Dumas

Blanche Dumas was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1860, to a French father and a biracial mother. She had a third leg attached to her sacrum, and her two primary legs were said to be imperfectly developed. The third leg was without a mobile joint but had a bend in it where the knee would have been. Her pelvis was wider than normal and she had double genitalia as well as a duplicate bowel and bladder. To the right of her middle leg was the stump of another limb; it’s unknown at this time whether this stump was naturally occurring or the site of a surgical amputation, but promoters sought to maximize its appeal by adorning it with nipples and advertising it a pair of “well-formed” extra breasts! Stories of Blanche all mention her pronounced libido. She moved to Paris later in life and became a courtesan, and allegedly, upon hearing about the three-legged man, dos Santos, who was touring at the same time, she expressed a desire to have sex with him. According to Gould and Pyle, “There were two vaginae and two well-developed vulvae, both having equally developed sensations. The sexual appetite was markedly developed, and coitus was practiced in both vaginae.”

Post Mortem Girls

This is a "Post Mortem" photo, the girl on the right side is dead and a posing stand is supporting her neck , back and arms. The girl in the picture has open eyes but in some cases the photographer painted pupils on the eye lids to make them look wide awake.

After Queen Victoria asked to photograph the corpse of an relative as a souvenir this idea spread around the world. A morbid reminder of the loved once that passed on.

Crematorium

Human remains at Stutthof concentration camp crematorium ovens in the neighborhood of Danzig (Poland).

Historia Naturae

                                         Another great Svankmajer movie...

The red spectre 1907

                               By Segundo de Chomòn and Ferdinand Zecca

Felidae Reliquie , Saint Cat

The pope

The cardinal

The nun

The abbess

by Ali Mahdavi

Last Jimmy Trash & the Gundpowder Temple Of Heaven Show

They played their last show on tuesday... 03.07.2012 .........Will be remembered !

Reliquien Mallorca

Some refound fotos from  Mallorca holidays, to stupid that i dont know the name of the chapel but ill find out soon

there was also some hair in this reliquie

i think they said that belonged to Johannes dem Teufer, maybe the hair too

and another Jesus

Museum of natural history Berlin

Last weekend i went to Berlin`s museum of natural history after its renovation. They made a really good job, i think i took around 200 photos......Two halls were still closed (domestic animals and birds) so i have to go there in september again! Anyway, here are some photos from"the wet-collection" ; 80 tonnes ethanol and around 1 million animals! Everyone that visits Berlin or lives here should go!

the malformed babys

Crypt of the Monastery of Santa Maria Della Pace

This Crypt in Palerma has separate sections for monks, priests,men , women, children , families , .......Many mummies....But here are some fotos from their "Chapel of Virgins".Not an authentic chapel , but rather a vault reserved for girls who died with their virginity intact.

In her hands she holds a palm frond.The palm was a symbol for martyrdom, but here it presents the triumph of faith.

Four figures are placed upright on a ledge in the chapel alongside a large cross. Inscribed on the wall above them are the words: "We follow the lamb wherever he goes, we are virgins."

Traditionally, relatives would come on the Day of the Dead to tend the mummies, anointing them with fragrances, providing flowers and dressing them in new sets of clothing but..................