Bone Gallery

Christs Mission to the Apostles, c. 970-980. Creator: Unknown

Christ's Mission to the Apostles, c. 970-980. This ivory plaque represents a full-length figure of Christ flanked by bust-length portraits of the twelve apostles, six in a vertical column on each side. With his large eyes fixed on the beholder and his mouth slightly open, Christ seems about to speak to the apostles, charging them with the mission of preaching the Gospel to the world. The plaque may originally have formed the central decoration of a precious Gospel book cover that may have looked much like the one Christ carries in this image

© Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Descent from the Cross, 1653. Creator: Adam Lenckhardt (German, 1610-1661)

Descent from the Cross, 1653. The prince of Liechtenstein, Karl Eusebius--one of the preeminent Central European art collectors and patrons of music during the 1600s--commissioned this work. The contract challenged Lenckhardt to carve an eight-figure group out of a single huge African elephant tusk from Eusebius's own treasury. Because of the tusk's hollow interior, the artist plugged the sculpture with an additional piece of ivory at the base, now the skull and bone at the foot of the cross. The story unfolds only by walking around the sculpture, with every viewpoint offering subtle fluctuations of the narrative

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A fish hook of human bone with double inner barb

A fish hook of human bone with double inner barb. To make a fish hook of an enemy warrior's bone would have been a deliberate and especially marked insult designed to provoke an enemy group into battle. The Ngai Tahu tribe introduced cannibalism into South Island in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Country of Origin: New Zealand. Culture: Maori. Date/Period: 19th C. Place of Origin: Banks Peninsula. Material Size: Human bone. Credit Line: Werner Forman Archive/ Canterbury Museum, Christchurch . Location: 03

© Werner Forman Archive / Heritage-Images