Bentham in a Box

Bill writes: I went to the Petrie Museum of Egyptology today. It's in the University College of London (so good they named it twice). It's kind of buried in the back, but, like the Royal Academy of Music museum, it had world-class stuff. I particularly liked the shabtis (but that's because it popped up in some stuff I wrote for school). My favorite was this blouse. It's a young woman's dress from 3,000 BCE. It's over 5,000 years old. That just blows me away. It's the oldest dress in the world.



Well, when I was getting ready to leave, I noticed on a brochure that they had Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon. I had to see this. I'd read about this as a kid when my best friend Gary and I bought an armful of Ripley's Believe It or Not paperbacks at the Museum on Fisherman's Wharf. Are you reading this, Gary? I saw the auto-icon!

After walking through the back halls of the college, going up and around the south quarter, I found him, sitting in his box at the back of the hall. The deal is, Jeremy Bentham, one of England's greatest political philosophers (1748-1832), willed his body such that it would be preserved and displayed. And that's just what he did. So there was Jeremy in his box.



He does look rather mournful to be there after all this time.



A little plaque at the top of the box tells the story of how he came to be there.



Well, that's not all of him. I seemed to recall from my Ripley's, that his head (Bentham's, not Ripley's), being separate, attends board meetings. I saw a faculty member giving some students a tour, and interupted (as that's what Americans are good at) and asked him if this was indeed the case. He said, yes, but that they try not to bring his head out too often, as it tends to roll off the table.

Having seen a photo of his actual head these days, I can see why they don't want this to happen. And I can say how profoundly glad I am that I'll never be a member of the board of the University College of London.