|
Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
|
|
Jack the Ripper: Of macabre and mystery |
|
|
|
|
Written by DeadGirl
|
|
Monday, 27 June 2005 |
June 27 2005
REUTERS
LONDON: A mental patient, a butcher, the artist Walter Sickert, a serial wife poisoner and even Queen Victoria's grandson have all been touted as Jack the Ripper suspects in one of the greatest whodunits in history.
But what if Jack the Ripper was not a Londoner, not even British? What if he was a merchant seaman, who pursued his blood lust as far afield as Nicaragua and Germany?
Ripperologists -- self-appointed sleuths on the Ripper's trail who number in the thousands -- are in a spin over a new book proposing that Britain's most famous serial killer was a merchant sailor who murdered when his ship was docked.
In London's grimy East End the Ripper slew five prostitutes over 10 weeks in 1888, leaving their throats slashed from ear to ear and lacerations up and down the bodies of all but one of the victims. Some of their organs were also removed.
Trevor Marriott, a former detective and author of the controversial new book "Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation", says police on the case wrongly assumed that the killer lived and worked in London's East End and failed to see a pattern between the dates of the crimes.
"I believe the police were blinkered and didn't choose to look at the possibility the killer could be a merchant seaman," he told Reuters.
LUCRATIVE INDUSTRY
The Ripper has spawned a multi-million pound industry in books, souvenirs, a musical and films -- most recently "From Hell" starring Johnny Depp -- showing that the public's fascination with the murderer is very much alive.
The macabre Ripper tour is by far the most popular walking tour in London, pulling in around 60,000 people annually, curious to visit the murder sites and haunts of the victims.
To the annoyance of local residents, the summer brings a surge in tourists to Whitechapel district, where blood from slaughterhouses once ran down the cobbled streets and around 40,000 prostitutes plied their wares by gas light.
Here, in the teeming slum beyond the city walls, the Ripper hunted his prey and then vanished into the twisting alleyways.
Marriott believes the murderer arrived on one of a handful of ships that were docked in or near the East End around the dates of the killings. However, records of their crews were destroyed or lost, making it impossible to focus on one sailor.
What Marriott did find were reports of six prostitutes carved up, Ripper-style, in Nicaragua over 10 days in January 1889, just two months after the murder spree supposedly ended.
These were followed by a similar killing in London in February, one in the German port of Flensburg in October and another in London in July 1891.
But the Ripper had no medical knowledge, Marriott says, contrary to some assumptions. Even if the Ripper were a practised surgeon, he would have trouble carving out women's organs in a pitch black alley, he argues.
Marriott suggests the organs were removed at the mortuary for sale in the thriving illegal organ market of the time.
His theories have set blogs buzzing among Ripper enthusiasts, who are estimated by some to number 50,000. One old hand called Marriott's findings "the same old cod", while others said the sailor idea had been around since the killings.
UNCLE JACK?
A second new book, "Uncle Jack" by Tony Williams, proposes the killer was the author's ancestor, Sir John Williams -- a gynaecologist to Queen Victoria's children and the founder of the National Library of Wales.
Williams had set out to explore his family history when he stumbled upon a box of Sir John's personal effects, including a knife, three medical slides and diaries with the 1888 entries ripped out.
He discovered that besides his posh Harley Street surgery, Sir John had a clinic in Whitechapel, giving him access to the prostitutes who thronged the area.
His medical notes showed he had performed an abortion on the Ripper's first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, in 1885.
Williams believes Sir John was enraged by the prostitutes he saw getting pregnant while his own wife was unable to have children and killed them either out of vengeance or to use their organs for researching a cure for infertility.
"These women were having children left, right and centre and he wanted this cure," said Williams.
However, shortly after the killings stopped, Sir John had something akin to a nervous breakdown, gave up medicine and returned to Wales for good.
Again, most Ripperologists were scathing of Williams' theory. "I felt so cheated after reading this nonsense I demanded, and received, my money back," wrote Horace Kelly.
But one, Amanda C, found his arguments convincing. Betraying what may be the real reason for such vehement scepticism from the sleuth community, she asked: "What will we all do if the mystery is solved?"
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE420050627041542&Page=4&Title=Features+-+People+%26+Lifestyle&Topic=0 |
|
Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Taphophilia Facts
|
New Jersey is home to one Presidential gravesite, Grover Cleveland.
|
|
Quote Repository
“Of comfort no man speak Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; Let's choose executors and talk of wills.” King Richard II, Act III, Scen
Grave Epigrams
|
Lyke as this marble now doeth hyde
The bodies of theisse twayne
So shall not thou on earth lyve longe
But turne to dust agayne.
Then learne to dye and dye to lyve
As theisse two heare examples give. Over Peover, England 1573 |
|
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
|
