HEADS UP!

Quote for Today - December 12, 2013 - Thursday

"In a museum in Havana there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."

Mark Twain [1835-1910]

Notes: 

At this date, there are no authentic portraits of Christopher Columbus. This painting is by Sebastiano del Piombo - dated 1519.

This is not the only story of head relics.  Here's what Wikipedia reports about the head of John the Baptist: "Several different locations claim to possess the severed head ofJohn the Baptist. Among them: Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; San Silvestro in Capite  in Rome;  and the Residenz Museum in Munich, Germany (official residence of the Wittelsbach   rulers of Bavaria from 1385 to 1918). Other heads were once said to be held by the Knights Templar at Amiens Cathedral in France (brought home by Wallon de Sarton from the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople),  at Antioch  in Turkey (fate uncertain), and the parish church at Tenterden in Kent, where it was preserved up until the Reformation."

Moral of the story: Heads up! You never know if what is on the sign in a museum or wherever is true.