Does anyone know the word for...

Nov 11, 2008 09:50

I don't know that there actually is a word for this concept, but this seems like a sensible place to start asking.

"A place/room/container where (human) skulls (and no other types of bony structure) are kept/stored/enshrined/preserved."

Ossuary is too wide, as it doesn't restrict the type of bone. Ditto charnel house.

I postulated calvarium, but ( Read more... )

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Comments 5

pseudomonas November 11 2008, 10:20:48 UTC
The OED has a couple of citations for "skull house", though not recent.

[5]b. In sense ‘in which skulls are reposited’, as skull-box, -house.
1628-9 Sarum Churchw. Acc. (Swayne, 1896) 312 Henge for the skulle howse dore. 1654-5 Ibid. 330 Locke for ye skull house dore. 1859 JEPHSON Brittany vi. 67 In the apertures between the uprights which supported the roof [of the charnel-house] were heaped up skull-boxes.

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mhw November 11 2008, 18:02:31 UTC
Thank you.

In the meantime I'd also jokingly proposed skullery to myself.

I think I shall have to keep digging.

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goliard November 11 2008, 18:58:07 UTC
The OED actually lists 'skullery' in much the sense you're after:

A collection of skulls; a place for skulls.

1818 Blackw. Mag. IV. 327 The effect of the water dropping from the jaw-bones and eyeholes... It is not to be thought that an Irishman could contemplate such a skullery with unmoved imagination. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 31 July 1/3 On his excavating expeditions an annexe, usually known as the ‘skullery’, is almost invariably brought into use.

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hitchhiker November 12 2008, 07:25:49 UTC
i was just going to say 'skullery' (:

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rubberduckgrrl November 21 2008, 18:47:56 UTC
I'm not sure the answer, but I just visited this criptoportico/crypt - and the site might hold an answer for you.

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