Memento Mori Through Time: Death Reminders in the Science Museum Collection

Gabrielle Brian Qwamina from the Science Museum Group guides viewers through an assortment of memento mori objects in the collection. Starting with a 2000-year-old bronze lava convivalis, she shows how ancient Romans used party keepsakes to urge guests to live fully before death. She then examines Roman silver cups depicting Zeno and Epicurus, contrasting Stoic and Epicurean views on death and virtue. Moving into the medieval era, the Dance macabre prints illustrate how mortality was used to promote piety. Early modern mourning jewellery, including a 1689 brooch and a ring dated 1815, reveal the role of hair as a tangible memory of the departed. The wax vanitas sculpture concludes the tour, juxtaposing wealth and beauty with decay and rebirth. The video highlights evolving attitudes toward death across history.

Introduction

The curator, Gabrielle Brian Qwamina, introduces the theme of Memento Mori, objects that remind us of death and mortality, tracing a lineage from ancient Rome to the early modern period. The aim is to explore how cultures have represented death through objects, beliefs, and practices, and how these objects speak to human mortality across centuries.

Ancient Rome: A Skeleton Keeps Party Conversation Alive

At the start, a 2000-year-old bronze figure represents a lava convivalis, literally a banquet ghost. This articulated "skeleton" was given to party guests as a playful reminder that life is fleeting and that tomorrow may bring death. The piece dates back to around 500 BCE and could be made to move thanks to its joints, letting guests imagine the figure dancing at the table. The object is linked to a broader Roman practice of memento mori documented in contemporary literature, including Petronius's Satyricon where Trimalchio uses such tokens in a celebratory, yet cautionary, poem about fate and mortality. The segment emphasizes how death awareness permeated social life in antiquity, blending humor with a serious reminder of impermanence.

Roman Cups: Philosophical Debates on Death and Living Well

Two Roman silver cups—originals now in the Louvre—date to the period near the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. They feature engravings of two philosophers: Zeno of Citium, a Stoic who argued life is finite and virtue is the guide to a good life, and Epicurus, who urged the pursuit of pleasure while recognizing mortality. The juxtaposition highlights how different schools of thought approached death, whether as a prompt to virtuous living or a call to enjoy life while possible. While their conclusions diverge, both schools place mortality at the center of human life, underscoring the universal human preoccupation with death that art and philosophy have long sought to address.

Dance Macabre: The Medieval Allegory of Death’s Universality

The collection then moves into the medieval and early modern periods with three objects from a set of 37 representing the dance macabre, an allegory illustrating that death spares no one. These engravings trace back to 1400s artwork by Hans Holbein the Younger, though the objects themselves are from the 1700s. They portray common people such as a wife and a husband, alongside other figures like a bishop or a noblewoman, all being drawn into a skeletal dance. The accompanying German verses between the living and death narrate a back-and-forth about fate and judgment, acting as a moral reminder to lead holy lives. The video explains that these works functioned as scare tactics to promote piety and humility across social strata, using the theater of death to critique wealth, status, and moral conduct.

Mourning Jewellery: Hair as Lasting Remembrance

The narrative progresses to the early modern period with mourning jewellery, a practice beginning in the 1600s. The first piece shown is a brooch with a skeleton holding an hourglass, a classic memento mori motif, engraved with the deceased's initials WH and the date of death, 1689. The background fabric of the piece is hair, woven into a decorative pattern. Hair was valued because it survived decay longer than soft tissues, enabling the wearer to carry a physical fragment of the departed. A second example is a ring containing hair behind glass, with the deceased listed as Doctor Letson and died in 1815 at age 71. These pieces illustrate how the personal remains of loved ones became materially linked to memory and mourning rituals, extending memory and connection beyond death.

Vanitas Wax: The Vanitas Theme and the Ugliness of Decay

The most imposing object in the gallery is an 18th-century wax vanitas sculpture. Vanitas works remind viewers of the futility of wealth and earthly pleasures in the face of death. The base carries the inscription Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas, reminding viewers that all is vanity. The sculpture presents a split figure: one side depicts life with symbols of wealth and beauty such as flowers and hair, while the other side shows decay and death with insects and a skeletal hand. The living half includes symbols of vitality, rebirth, and transience, notably a salamander that stands for the resilience of life in the face of fire. The piece juxtaposes the allure of material wealth with the inevitability of death, highlighting the medieval and early modern preoccupation with the moral message that wealth cannot outlive death.

Conclusion

The video closes by contrasting the different functions of death imagery across periods: the Roman objects celebrate life and social joy, the medieval pieces urge piety and moral behavior, and mourning jewellery and vanitas reflect on the limits of wealth and knowledge in the face of mortality. Taken together, the objects reveal a long and varied cultural conversation with death, anchored by the universal human certainty that life ends for all.