The Wonder of a Skull
A human skull is spiritually sublime.
Don't ge me wrong, I'm not a very spiritual person. I'm not even spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR, as the cool scholars say). I'm more or less Humanist, and I'm quite sympathetic to both TST and some Reconstructionist Judaism.
Regardless of my staunch naturalism, I'm capable of spiritual feelings, as humans generally are. I think other people attain those feelings through natural means1, though they often ascribe supernatural origin. My most spiritual sensations come from the recognizably natural. A connection to nature gives me the sense of wonder and smallness I so appreciate.
The Greatest Wonder
The pinacle of that wonder? A human skull2. It starts with the marvelous natural complexity of the object, but there's much more to it. In my gut, I feel a deep, involuntary reverance for the life of the person who inhabited that skull. I handled human bones somewhat regularly in college anatomy classes. Perhaps the reverence is adapted from innate disgust, but it doesn't feel so negative. It feels like holding a late relative's wedding ring or beloved pocket watch. The object evokes the person, suffused with their essence through a lifetime of inseparable contact. Every skull is the relic of a saint.
It may seem that without a belief in a metaphysical spirit, it's irrational of me to talk about a person's "essence" in their parts or posessions. On the contrary: if a feeling of connection is naturalistic, a similar connection through memory is also real. Suppose for a moment, as I do, that identity is a perceptual construct. Suppose that feeling someone's soul when you look in their eyes is a beautiful phenomenon of your mind. Then when a relic evokes the same feeling, that thing is really and truly connecting you like in life. I hold my grandpa's old slide rule, and I experience a sensation of presence like when he was alive. A memory is a real experience.
An echo is a real sound.
Skulls of the Unknown
I have never seen the bones of a person I knew in life. I was studying the skeletons of unknown strangers — in some cases, not even a professor or department can be sure of their provenance beyond a vague history of their acquisition before modern medical ethics. Other times, there's a paperwork trail that ultimately goes cold for the privacy of the willing "donor." These bones are relics of unknown saints.
And here, we again encounter wonder. Through these bones, I've felt wonder in both senses: amazement, and a sense of unknowing. The skull could have come from any one of billions of people I never met. The anonymity of the drop lays bare the vastness of the ocean.
I felt responsibility to the bones' originators. They had already given me so much. How to express my reverence and gratitude knowing so little about what they'd have wanted?
The best I could do is to learn about the people. Bones are remarkably good at that. Sutures narrow down age, tooth wear tells you a bit about diet, pathologies reveal some diseases, and tiny anatomical variations can even hint at the person's ancestry. Study may have been the highest honor I could earnestly give. I learned a lot from those skeletons, and I enjoyed it. That's what I'd want someone to do with my bones.
Problematic Provenance
It still nags at me that I don't know how some of the bones landed where I could access them. Some study skeletons historically came from executed criminals, some were imported from India, some were robbed from graves, and many are from who-knows-where. Skeleton dealing was a shady business for a long time. When I worked at a science museum, one visitor claimed to have studied anatomy on bodies, plural, from an unspecified pygmy tribe in Africa3.
I watched a really good documentary videoessay the other day. It's about the Pernkopf Atlas, an anatomical reference volume made by Nazis. Its creators likely based some of the drawings on the bodies of Holocaust victims. It's horrifying, though no moreso than the rest of the Holocaust. The unique problem is that the Pernkopf Atlas is a really good reference, the best available for some disciplines. It's so detailed that 9% of maxillofacial surgeons still reported using it as of 2020. I don't have much to add about the Atlas, and you should watch the video.
The study skulls I used were not likely from people murdered, but some were very possibly from people who didn't know where their bodies were headed. I hope that my appreciation somehow gives their fate more meaning.
One of my old professors, now emeritus, will know more the osteological collection we worked from. I've reached out in hopes she'll have info about the specimens' provenance.
Footnotes
See the Humanist Manifesto, Ninth and Tenth statements↩
Babies are pretty good too.↩
He also called himself a "bone doctor" and couldn't tell a bonobo's humerus from its femur. So, a grain of salt.↩