Monday, February 28, 2011

The Sedlec Ossuary




"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel located in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people.

"Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to Palestine by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. When he returned, he brought with him a small amount of earth that he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. During the Black Death in the mid 14th century, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands of people were buried there and the cemetery had to be greatly enlarged.

"In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order. The macabre result of his effort speaks for itself. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance."

Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Great Wave


The Great Wave off Kanagawa
from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
1760-1849 Japanese

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes

As requested, here are photos of the remarkable but desperately rare Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes.








A total of 57 Calvin and Hobbes comic strips (56 daily strips and 1 Sunday strip) appear in Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, organized into five lesson units. Each strip is numbered and each panel in each strip is lettered for reference in the unit questions.

Number of comic strips per lesson unit:

1. The Binoculars - 10 strips
2. The Find - 10 strips
3. The Christmas Story - 1 Sunday strip + 9 daily strips = 10 strips
4. The Bug Collection - 17 strips
5. The Report - 10 strips