Severed by Frances Larson

Author:Frances Larson [Larson, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Staff at the West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St. Edmunds, photographed for the Ipswich Star newspaper, positioning Simon of Sudbury’s head in the CT scanner, March 2011.

So Sudbury’s head is a true twenty-first-century relic. Complete with its own scientifically modelled ‘reliquary bust’, it draws people to an Anglican church, and is used by a Christian charity to teach children about anatomy and the science of forensic anthropology. It makes Oliver Plunkett’s head seem positively medieval in its scope. Sudbury’s head is proof that secular relics can generate as much activity, and bring people together with as much verve, as any sacred relic ever could. The project received considerable press attention when Sudbury’s face was revealed in September 2011. Journalists described the reconstruction itself in passing, as a contribution to local and national history; but the main story was simply the unveiling of Sudbury’s face. This scientific ‘reincarnation’ was a news item in itself. The responsibility for the miraculous transformation, from decaying organic matter to glorious immortality cast in precious metal, may have been in the hands of scientists rather than clerics, but the sense of wonder remained the same.

The heads of Oliver Plunkett and Simon Sudbury have survived long enough to become something new. They have become time travellers, visitors from another world; they are strangers to the past as much as they are strangers in the present. The passage of time has dried them out, darkened and disfigured them, confirming their status as archaeological artefacts that awaken our academic curiosity as much as our passions. Thanks to the protection of the Church, they have become a focus for public reverence, despite their distasteful physical condition. And because of their longevity, they command their own space and have accrued new identities post mortem. Slightly less than people and slightly more than objects, they have become valuable entities in their own right, with new powers and new politics. They command our attention as much as ever before, and in a secular age, it is hardly surprising if the quality of our contemplation has shifted from divine miracles to miracles of computer modelling.

There are numerous examples of preserved human bodies that do not belong to the Church but accrue mystical powers nonetheless. Communist governments, for example, know that the dead can draw greater crowds than they ever did in life. Vladimir Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong are perhaps the most famous political mummies who still greet visitors today. Millions of people have queued to see them over the years. Lenin has been on display, with only one or two short interruptions, since his death in 1924. He has become something of a political embarrassment, because after all this time the idea of burying him is as controversial as the idea of keeping him on display. Thanks to the tireless work of a team of embalmers who make sure he is as incorruptible as is scientifically possible, he has become an oxymoron: a communist saint – so much so that in one

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