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Description
Approximately 6 hours with a mechanical pencil; background and text inserted via Photoshop. Drawn with a reference from Gray's Anatomy.

This is the actual size.

Unfortunately, some of the shading on the squamous temporal bone and the frontal bone didn't scan properly.

The Greek means "Death is the enemy of nature and beauty," a quotation from the purported reliquary of Mary Magdalene's head. The reliquary is in a crypt beneath the basilica in Saint Maximin de Provence, France.

Special thanks to for his translational aid and exceptional title idea ("The Mark of Death").

Also, on an interesting tangent: brought up the point that it seemed to her unlikely that Mary Magdalene would have thought death to be the enemy of nature, but rather part of it. After some thought, it occurred to me that death was not an original aspect of the Biblical "state of nature" (in the philosophical sense), i.e. Eden, but rather an addition given as a punishment to Adam and Eve after they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Death is, to a Christian, the enemy of nature.

(Cf. Genesis 2:16-17: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."*

and Genesis 3:19: In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."*

Notably, the idea of death as unnatural is also present in Christian soteriology.)

*The Bible, RSV, courtesy of [link]

Description
Approximately 6 hours with a mechanical pencil; background and text inserted via Photoshop. Drawn with a reference from Gray's Anatomy.

This is the actual size.

Unfortunately, some of the shading on the squamous temporal bone and the frontal bone didn't scan properly.

The Greek means "Death is the enemy of nature and beauty," a quotation from the purported reliquary of Mary Magdalene's head. The reliquary is in a crypt beneath the basilica in Saint Maximin de Provence, France.

Special thanks to for his translational aid and exceptional title idea ("The Mark of Death").

Also, on an interesting tangent: brought up the point that it seemed to her unlikely that Mary Magdalene would have thought death to be the enemy of nature, but rather part of it. After some thought, it occurred to me that death was not an original aspect of the Biblical "state of nature" (in the philosophical sense), i.e. Eden, but rather an addition given as a punishment to Adam and Eve after they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Death is, to a Christian, the enemy of nature.

(Cf. Genesis 2:16-17: "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."*

and Genesis 3:19: In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."*

Notably, the idea of death as unnatural is also present in Christian soteriology.)

*The Bible, RSV, courtesy of [link]