A recent entry on another blog titled "Severed Heads at the Nelson-Atkins" caught my attention for obvious reasons. As I read it, I noticed an image under the "New Flickr images" that I have always thought of as one of the creepiest objects in the Museum's collection.
The image is of a Monstrance (or Reliquary) that is on view in Gallery P6. This reliquary was created circa 1400 in Germany. The story goes that the object contains a finger bone from John the Baptist.
Every once in a while the Museum gets some interest in this object. Just a few years ago, we had a call from a man who had a great idea on how to get us on the Discovery channel. Since John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins on the mother's side, this man was convinced he could authenticate the Shroud of Turin by matching the DNA from our finger bone to the DNA in the cloth.
Sadly, a call to the curator confirmed that the bone is not even human. It is a bird bone, most likely from a chicken.
The Monstrance is still pretty cool to see and who knows, maybe one day a long, long time ago, it did contain a bone from the Baptist. I guess that is why they call it faith.