Looking for Books on Decapitation

wildsaffy

Hi,

My friend is doing a paper on Peruvian Bones and needs textbooks on decapitation and also on occupational stress and trauma .

She is having difficulty finding any in Irish libraries - does anyone have any textbooks discussing the above (such as Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains by Donald Ortner etc etc) but mainly in the forensic strain.

Much appreciated!!!

wildsaffy

the_syco

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=495 mentions Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle

Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds … I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased.

The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, leaving only the white of the conjunctiva visible, exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession, or as in those just dead.
It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: 'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions … Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves … After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

LOL. Freaky sh|t alright. Pretty sure the good Doctor Beaurieux did a study into this and you won't find a better study into it, as once people copped on that the heads are still alive after being chopped off, it was deemed as "cruel" :pac:

wildsaffy

Um, seems like I should be scared.

Um, very, very scared.

Thanks.

:eek:

Riamfada

My kind of thing. The two books that I found most helpful without a background in osteoarchaeology were "The Archaeology of Disease" by Keith Manchester for occupational stress and trauma and Simon Mays "the "Archaeology of Human Bone" does an accessible book on pathologies. Ive found it very useful when trying to interpret pathologies over a cemetary site.

wildsaffy

Thanks Grimes - I will convey that information ...

Dr Strange

It is very difficult finding books purely dealing with decapitation marks on skeletal remains. I looked for some references as part of my research into cranial base morphology and found papers and sometimes book chapters dealing with decapitation but not whole books.

I could send you the titles of the papers and you can access them online through a library website (UCD had acccess to all these titles).

As for pathological conditions in bones there are a whole lot out there. Not sure if you can get around actually buying one or two. At the beginning of my PhD project I thought I could get away with just getting papers but since then my private library has grown to include all recent forensic books on my topic as well as osteological, anatomical and clinicel texts and many out-of-print titles as well. All in all I probably bought over 120 books over the last couple of years just for the research project as the libraries did not stock them.

wildsaffy

Preusse,

Definately would be interested in the titles......many thanks!!!

How would you feel about access to your own library if we cannot get the access through a libary website?

Many thanks,
wildsaffy

Dr Strange

wildsaffy,

I will send you some titles by pn shortly. As for the private "library":D no, unfortunately, I cannot make it available. However, I don't mind copying relevant pages for your personal use. So if you have a book that you know has something of interest in it let me know and I'll see if I have it. However, it may take a while as I am in the writing-up phase and am quite stressed.

wildsaffy

Thanks Preusse ....

Doozie

'The Torso in the Canal' by John Mooney

ehem....

boneless

Doozie wrote: »

'The Torso in the Canal' by John Mooney

ehem....

Actually, there may be pathologists reports included in this book. Martin Dillons one on the Shankill Butchers included them and they were chilling but informative.

Strange as it seems, there might be worth in perusing true crime works.