Plaster cast of the skull of Robert Burns

Key details

Object number: 3.5005
Date: 1834
On display: Yes

Description

The plaster cast of the poet's skull was taken in Dumfries when the body was exhumed from the Mausoleum in St. Michael's Churchyard just prior to the funeral of his widow Jean on 31st March 1834. This was 38 years after the death of Burns.

Casts were made of Burns’s skull during the period that his grave was opened to admit his wife’s body. Phrenologists of the time then created a written report, detailing Burn's wit and intellect based on these castings.

Phrenologists, such as Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828), Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832) and George Combe (1788–1858) are now considered to be pseudo-scientists. They believed a skull’s shape and dimensions revealed its owner’s personality, as well as level of intelligence.

Phrenology has now been wholly discredited and is considered a form of scientific racism, as it is associated with eugenics and racial profiling that are still used to ethically or racially discriminate today - but which also underpinned racism within the British Empire. Gall's research originated among the inmates of jails and lunatic asylums, with his early analysis used to 'detect' if someone was determined to be a criminal by birth.

Object information

Material

Plaster

Measurements

Depth: 16(cm)
Height: 15(cm)
Width: 20(cm)

Themes

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