Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Artifact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. On
Speaker 2: a recent visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,
Speaker 2: I came across one of the weirder pieces of art
Speaker 2: I think you could hope to find in such a place.
Speaker 2: Alongside various historic pieces from around the world, here's something
Speaker 2: that seems to stand outside of any given artistic tradition,
Speaker 2: or so it seemed to me. It looks like the
Speaker 2: creature from John Carpenter's The thing was in the process
Speaker 2: of turning into an ox when the flamethrowers hit it.
Speaker 2: The result a googly eyed head of an ox atop
Speaker 2: a wooden pillar of twisting hooves and tissue. Granted, I
Speaker 2: was pretty jet lagged when I first took this side,
Speaker 2: literally struggling to stay awake on my feet, but this
Speaker 2: absurdity really captured my attention and woke me up a
Speaker 2: little bit. The museum's website lists it as head of
Speaker 2: an Ox, while the signage in the museum calls it
Speaker 2: head of an ox on a tree trunk. Indeed, this
Speaker 2: bizarre sculpture from the second half of the seventeenth century
Speaker 2: consists of an ox head carved from marble atop a
Speaker 2: tree trunk, with added wooden hoofs. If all of this
Speaker 2: was not enough, an oval cavity in the top of
Speaker 2: the ox head contains a wrinkled stone that for all
Speaker 2: the world looks like a fossilized or petrified brain. So
Speaker 2: what is this brain all about? Well, for a while,
Speaker 2: according to the museum and the museum piece by curator
Speaker 2: Don Hoskin, it was long believed to be the fossilized
Speaker 2: or petrified brain of an ox. Subsequent analysis, however, I think,
Speaker 2: chiefly by the Natural History Museum in nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 2: revealed that it was in fact an osteoma or benign
Speaker 2: bone tumor, likely previously attached to the bones of an
Speaker 2: elephant or whale. Given its enormous size still relative to
Speaker 2: the sculptal system they're attached to, an ostioma can grow
Speaker 2: quite large. According to a twenty eleven paper giant frontal
Speaker 2: osteoma by Vishwakarma, at all one human osteoma reached a
Speaker 2: size of seven point one by five point three by
Speaker 2: five point one centimeters are roughly two point eight by
Speaker 2: two by two inches, which they say is one of
Speaker 2: the largest human ostioma ever reported. The ostioma in the
Speaker 2: ox Head, however, is somewhat larger. As Hoskin explains in
Speaker 2: her article, the piece is typical of seventeenth century fascination
Speaker 2: with naturally occurring oddities, even if the naturally occurring centerpiece
Speaker 2: of the work was not fully understood at the time.
Speaker 2: While its origins are shrouded in mystery, the piece likely
Speaker 2: came from a collection of curiosities in Villa Altequro and
Speaker 2: Padua in northern Italy. The museum acquired the piece in
Speaker 2: Venice in eighteen eighty two. The piece is on display now,
Speaker 2: so if you find yourself in London, I do recommend
Speaker 2: popping over to the Victoria and Albert Museum, go spend
Speaker 2: a few moments with it and revel in the morbid
Speaker 2: natural curiosity of a bygone age. Tune in for additional
Speaker 2: episodes of The Artifact, the Monster Fact or Anamalia Stupendium
Speaker 2: each week in the Wednesday slot here and the Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. As always You can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your.
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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