h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: jThe Case of Joseph Haydn's missing head - A88010985
Author: paulh, making lemonade from the lemons that life has given me - U176638

I would like to submit this entry for peer review. As Gnmonha smentioned, it deserves a separate entry of its own

It reads very well, but I have a couple of questions:

" the “seal of hearing.”" - can you say a little bit about what this was?

"Rosenbaum supplied a skull, but it obviously wasn't Haydn's" - why was it obviously not Haydn's?

Brilliant concluding sentences!

"Seal of hearing" should have been "seat of hearing."

Regrettably, the expression can be found connected to phrenology in only five places on the Internet, and not all of them are useful. The cerebellum is where the seat of hearing is located. So you could add [i.e. the cerebellum" after "seat of hearing."

"why was it obviously not Haydn's?"

I assume that it was the wrong size or shape. You may remove the word "obviously." Or, if the entry has not been put in Guide ML, I will do so myself.

So the finding of the Seat of Hearing on his skull provided evidence to the phrenologists that Haydn was good at listening? The Cerebellum is in the brain rather than on the skull? Or was it that the Seat of Hearing indicated a large cerebellum?

Your guess is as good as mine. Phrenology does not have its own Guide entry, but it is covered somewhat in A619427.

Also in A87874564 - Fanny Crosby had dealings with the phrenologists!

Try this erudite book with illustrated heads.

http://archive.org/details/howtoreadcharact00fowluoft/page/36/mode/1up?q=hearing

And yes, you still need to explain how they knew it wasn't FJ Haydn's head that was in there. I want to know.

I admit that I'd like to know, too.

This could give me something to do on a very dark, cold winter night.

"Eventually they did hand over a skull, but it was not Haydn’s."
http://resources.encoretours.com/backstage-blog/the-curious-story-of-haydns-head/

[This article was published in 2015. I could write a comment asking how they knew, but what the author has elvised or died or no longer has any connection with the online publication?]

"His tomb now contains a body and two heads, at least one of which we know to be Haydn's."
http://chetyod.wordpress.com/category/crime/

[Yes, we know it *now*, after the fact. The organization which ended up with the skull in its possession made this information public. The general public would not know whether it was the right skull or not. only an expert would be able to assess it.]

1. Finding a definitive clue is the province of experts, usually in the field of medicine or archaeology. I am an expert in neither field. Nor are the other people who have commented in this thread, as far as I can tell. 2. The original source material would likely be in German, not English. And 3. we are at a significant divide in terms of the number of years that this issue has been drawn out.

All I can be sure of is that Prince Esterhazy was as certain as anyone can be that the skull he was given was not Haydn's. The prince had known Haydn when Haydn was alive.

So, unless someone else has a bright idea, I will give an existential answer: the prince was certain that it was the wrong skull. he was so certain of this that he refused to let any part of Haydn's skeleton rest in his sarcophagus until he (the prince) was certain that the skull was the right skull. This did not happen during the prince's lifetime. Several other lifetimes came and went. Eventually an Esterhazy descendant learned that a respected Viennese institution claimed to have Haydn's echt head (one of the few German words I know, it means real or actual).

I enjoyed writing this entry. I would not have written it if someone else had not indicated that it really ought to be written. Readers might well enjoy reading it. Maybe an existential issue for us as H2G2 researchers is that we want people to read our entries. We aren't claiming to have expertise in the fields I have mentioned above. All we can claim is that we worked to the limits of our capacity, which I have done.

One of the hats I wear is that of the Secretary of a charitable organization. If I read the minutes for a meeting, and someone says the minutes need correction, and there is disagreement about whether the minutes are correct, the most probable outcome is that the objection will be recorded.

So, I acknowledge the observation that it would be an indispensable part of the entry if it could indicate how the Prince knew the skull he was given was not Haydn's. All I can do, as in the preceding paragraph, is to record the fact that there is a disagreement, in this case the Prince's disagreement about the skull being the right one. This disagreement happened roughly 207 years ago. The prince could have (and probably did) use visual cues: maybe the nose bones were not large enough to plausibly be those of Haydn, who had a very prominent aquiline nose. A death mask of Haydn's head was made right after he died. Someone could have compared the skull with the deathmask.

But (this is a *big* but) if I speculate too much, I'm putting opinion (namely my own) into an entry where facts ought to be.

The only *fact* I can be certain about, given the obstacles I've mentioned above, is that the prince was certain it was the wrong skull. I will mention in the body of the entry that the prince was certain it was the wrong skull. In a footnote at the end, I can mention that the prince had known Haydn in life, and would have had access to he deathmask.

If this means the entry cannot become part of the edited guide, I will move on to other things.

I have made changes to the entry, specifically the fifth paragraph.

I will now proceed to an easier question to answer, namely how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Here's another thought: This entry is dear to the heart of Gnomon. If I could get in touch with Gnomon, I ask him for guidance. If he wanted to get writing credit for the article, so much the better.

[I've left a comment asking for help at
http://resources.encoretours.com/backstage-blog/the-curious-story-of-haydns-head/]

I just read the entry. Interesting stuff.

Maybe they can sort of rotate the skulls with the body? To increase the chance of getting it right some of the time...

The clock, of course, is ticking. Maybe the people whose help I've asked for will never get back to me.

Anyway, I have yet to find anyone else on the Internet who knows why the prince rejected Rosenbaum's skull(s).

If no one else knows, it will just have to be a mystery or a case of my best educated guess.

Originally, when they opened the casket, they only found Haydn's body and a wig. Then they started threatening the guy with the skull, but he gave them two bogus skulls...

Here's what I found in German:

This article has a photo of Austrian poet and sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi replacing Haydn's skull in the church in Eisenstadt.

http://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/ein-concerto-criminale-der-kopflose-joseph-haydn.3888.de.html?dram:article_id=482622

Austria -Forum says this:

'Auch Herr Rosenbaum narrte den Fürsten, indem er ihm erst den Schädel eines Zwanzigjährigen und später – als dieser Betrug entdeckt wurde – den Schädel irgendeines alten Mannes übergab. Und dieser wurde dann den Gebeinen Haydns in Eisenstadt beigefügt.'

Translation: Herr Rosenbaum deceived the prince by giving him first the skull of a 20-year-old and later - when this deception was discovered - the skull of a random elderly man. This skull was placed with the bones of Haydn in Eisenstadt.'

http://austria-forum.org/af/AEIOU/Haydn-_Grab_ohne_Sch%C3%A4del

Bayern 2, a Bavarian television and radio station, has a gloriously funny piece on this. I recommend you run it through Google Translate.

http://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/kalenderblatt/haydn-bekommt-seinen-schaedel-zurueck-100.html

I am very grateful to you for this, Dmitri. Would you like to share authorship?

Oh, no, not at all! This is your solo entry. I'm just handing you stuff.

Also, if you need anything (short!) translated, give a shout.

I just hope I can meet the high standards you are setting.

I will add some of the material you've provided later today. For now, I'm trying to stay calm about the very long and very cold spell my area is facing.

Stay warm! It's cold here, too, with the usual snow.

I seem to have snowdrifted off-topic.