Curious posts for curious people — Macabre

Victorian mourning jewellery sits at the crossroads of beauty and grief — tiny wearable shrines crafted from jet, enamel, gold, and, most hauntingly, human hair. These pieces were not merely accessories; they were emotional technologies, designed to keep the dead present in a world where loss was constant and death was domestic. A Culture Shaped by Grief When Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria plunged into a mourning period that lasted the rest of her life. Her devotion reshaped British culture. Black clothing, memorial portraits, and mourning jewellery became not only acceptable but fashionable, spreading through every level of...

Aztec mythology in general is a fascinating subject, but today I’m going to focus on one badass god – Xipe Totec, otherwise known as “Our Lord the Flayed One” – Already we’re off to a good start. Xipe Totec was seen as a life-death-rebirth deity, who was also the god of agriculture & vegetation, the east, spring, liberation and the patron of gold and silversmiths, a pretty all-round guy. While his origins are uncertain, with most historians being reliant on post-conquest Spanish texts for information, in 2018 an excavation in Puebla revealed a temple dedicated to his worship. In Aztec...