Ith do sháith agus ól do sháith agus déan do sháith den obair, agus
nuair a gheobhas tú an bás, féadfaidh tú do sháith a chodladh.
Eat and drink your fill and do your work as best, and when you die, you can sleep your rest.
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Fifth-graders from Charlotte take in the final display at "Written in Bone," a forensic anthropology study. (Linda Davidson - The Washington Post)
On Right: Dr. Grover Krantz and Clyde - Source: The Washington Post
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Additional Story:
The Washington Post
Anatomy Lesson
Natural History Museum Fulfills a
Scholar's Dying Wish: His Skeleton Is on Exhibit as a Teaching
Specimen
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Diane Horton had last seen her late husband two days after his
death in 2002, so when they were reunited at the Smithsonian's
Museum of Natural History a few weeks ago she asked for a few
private minutes with him.
He was standing under spotlights in a huge display case -- all 6
feet 3 inches of him except for a few bones missing here and
there. His head was thrown back and his mouth was open, as if in
a big laugh, and his arms were around one of his favorite dogs.
Here was professor Gordon S. "Grover" Krantz, and all, or almost
all, of the phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals and the other 200 or
so bones that made up his skeleton. Reassembled with wire, glue
and metal.
It was an emotional moment, Horton, 66, said.
"Wow," she thought. "You had really [an] impossible last wish.
And it's been granted."
Indeed, it has.
The skeletons of Krantz and his beloved Irish wolfhound, Clyde,
make up the striking display that comes at the end of the
museum's current forensic anthropology exhibit, "Written in
Bone."
The two are depicted mimicking an old photograph, with the
skeleton of Clyde up on his hind legs and Krantz cradling the
dog's forelegs in his arms.
They make a startling sight -- cleansed of flesh and fur,
revealed down to the bones in the dog's tail and the dental
implants in Krantz's mouth.
Which is exactly what Krantz wanted.
"He looked happy," Horton said. "And Clyde looked happy."
It hadn't been so promising when Krantz announced eight years
ago that he wanted to donate his bones to the Smithsonian, with
the caveat that he, and maybe the bones of his dogs, be on
display.
Krantz, who died of cancer at age 70, was an eccentric and
revered teacher of osteology -- the study of bones -- at
Washington State University.
A resident of Port Angeles, Wash., he had long been fascinated
with human and animal skeletons, along with the lore of the
legendary bigfoot creature, Sasquatch, of the Pacific Northwest.
"He was just really curious about how things were put together,"
said former student John Cardinal, now with the FBI in
Washington.
After he got sick, and he offered his bones for display, his
wife told him he was crazy.
"It was an outlandish wish," she said recently. But "he wanted
his bones someplace. . . . He thought he would be a good
teaching specimen."
Krantz was in touch with several universities before the
Smithsonian agreed to take the disassembled bones of man and
dogs. The museum cautioned Krantz, however, that his
"re-articulation," as it is called, and display would be a long
shot.
"I said that would be a lot of money . . . and we would have to
have justification to spend that kind of money," said David R.
Hunt, a collections manager in the museum's department of
anthropology.
Hunt told Krantz that he would remember his wishes if things
changed.
Krantz's bones first went to the University of Tennessee's "body
farm," where scientists study the postmortem breakdown of human
remains, and where the scholar's skeleton was cleansed.
It came to the Smithsonian in 2003. The bones of Clyde and two
more of Krantz's dogs, who died before him, had already arrived
at the museum. All went into storage drawers, where it seemed
they were likely to stay.
Then came the proposal for "Written in Bone," which opened
earlier this year. Spurred by the field research of museum
forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley, the exhibit was planned as
a study of Colonial-era grave sites in the Chesapeake region.
Owsley saw an opportunity to include Krantz as a kind of finale
that would grab museumgoers just as they were leaving the
exhibit. "I just wanted something they might remember," he said.
But he faced the cost of reassembling Krantz, a job that would
need to be farmed out to an expensive specialist.
Owsley wondered, however, if the museum's taxidermist, Paul
Rhymer, might be able to tackle the job in-house, and save
money. The idea, which originated with Krantz, would be to
reassemble him and Clyde together along the lines of the old
photograph.
Rhymer, 46, who is also a sculptor and usually works on such
animals as foxes, monkeys and penguins, agreed to try. He taped
up a copy of the photo of Krantz and Clyde, and took the bones,
which were in boxes and plastic bags, to his museum workshop.
And over several months last fall and winter he brought them to
life.
He used power tools, hacksaws and a thick book on human anatomy.
He got and took lots of advice. He drilled minute holes in the
bones, wired ribs together and constructed the delicate, almost
invisible, scaffolding on which the skeletons rest.
"It was like a jigsaw puzzle," he said. "But it was like putting
two together at the same time and having them meet somewhere in
the middle."
He altered the two poses slightly from the photograph to avoid
any impression that Krantz was being attacked by the dog, and to
more clearly suggest a "joyful interchange."
Clyde, being a familiar "four-footer" to the taxidermist, was
easier to assemble. Rhymer started with Krantz.
He began with the bones and scaffolding of the spine, and worked
his way out. The skull was easy. The ribs wouldn't cooperate.
Bones were missing in the hands and feet.
Rhymer soon realized that the bones all fit together in a
logical way. "It takes a while to figure out, after you've
messed with these things, which notches fit in with what notch,"
he said. "There's no way I could have put the vertebrae in the
wrong order. It just wouldn't have fit."
Gradually Krantz took shape.
"Once I had him from his pelvis, and I had his head on, and I
had him at what I thought was going to be the right height, I
thought, 'Okay, this is going to work,' " Rhymer said.
Earlier this month, with the museum thronged with spring
tourists, there was an array of reactions to Krantz and Clyde.
"Freaky!" said one young visitor.
"Amazing," said a fifth-grade teacher.
"That is a big dog," said a woman.
"That is a big person," said a little girl. "Looks like he's
smiling.