Christine,
This may or may not be relevant to your work, as it is not a 'cult'
but a practical necessity. That is, at Hallstatt in Austria skulls are
collected in caves. They are intermittently dug up from the cemetery
because there is not land enough to house all of the dead over time. So
I think its about every 10 years (or perhaps as necessary) the grave is
re-used and the skull is marked and placed in a cave.
Bea
On 4/25/99 2:19 AM stephen buckley writes:
>
>Hi, folks, it's motormouth again!
>
>In a TV programme last night on the subject of former Yugoslavia, a brief
>clip was shown from a Serbian Orthodox church (monastery?), either in
>Kosovo or Serbia itself, which featured what seemed to be a wall of niches
>displaying skulls. I was so surprised that I didn't take in much about the
>location of the church or the date of the wall, although I think the
>skulls were said to be those of enemies defeated in battle. No water
>source nearby was mentioned, but this wouldn't be relevant to the
>programme, and of course there is debate as to whether a 'head-cult' was
>directly linked to water sources.
>
>The wall looked very like reconstructions of 'head-cult' sites. Does
>anyone know of any relevant literature in English (or French, or Italian
>at a pinch), or can anyone supply further info?
>
>Christine Buckley
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Beatrice Hopkinson 73071,327@compuserve
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