Digging deep into history and the store shelves

I've been looking forward to assembling this blog post! This is in a way Part 2 of the Michaels Halloween posts, but this time I wanted to illustrate a topic with my photos. I'm going to tell you about a TV show involving skeletons, so I thought "Why not separate out all the skeleton photos I took at Michaels for this post?" It turns out that a good half of the photos I took at Michaels were skeleton related.

I'll describe a few photos first, then describe the show a bit, then get back to the store skeletons.

Starting off, we have some yoga skeletons! I wish I had the flexibility to do what that skeleton on the left is doing, without being in pain anyway. Yee-ouch! OK, I actually just tried it, and my back leg was not having any of that. Haha!

I believe this is a little dragon skeleton. It's like someone pieced together my little rat skeleton and my little crow skeleton. And maybe the body is a bit like a chihuahua? It's cute.

This one makes me laugh for whatever reason.

Now to the TV show. Have any of you seen the show History Cold Case? It appears to be a European show and one that came out about a decade ago. But to me, it's new. I love YouTube for that. Every day, you can find a new show.

History Cold Case is an awesome show for anyone who is into history and cold cases. I suppose you could say any cold case is related to history, but it's usually the more recent history you'd see on say, an episode of Dateline. These are reeeaaally cold cases, like frozen cases. We're talking hundreds of years old here. But it's the same basic concept of scientists doing detective work. It's a forensics show, but kind of like CSI investigating medieval times.

So I'm using these skeleton photos to help illustrate the point that the shows begin with skeletal evidence. A skeleton has been found somewhere and the forensic artists, scientists, and detectives are trying to figure out who this skeleton once was and how they died. The coolest part to me, other than solving those mysteries, is when the forensic artists recreate what the person's face looked like.

So the first episode I watched was about "The Stirling Man", so named for the "Stirling Castle" he was found buried in. I learned a lot about medieval history from this episode! It's hard for me to not get into detail here because I want to discuss the discovery of who this guy was. But I won't spoil it for you guys. Let's just say, you'll get a really detailed view of a medieval occupation and a surprise as to why this man's body was found buried in a castle. Oh, and it's really worth seeing his reconstructed face. I think some of the forensics women had a minor crush on him. I know that's funny, saying they had a crush on the recreation of a face that's based off a hundreds of years old skull, but that's how it appears. 😊

The Stirling Man episode:

And for those of you who get this by email, a link: The Stirling Man

The second and only other episode of History Cold Case I watched was about "The Ipswich Man". Here's the video:

And here's a link: The Ipswich Man

I'm not spoiling much by saying that this episode involves an African man's remains that are mysteriously found within the Greyfriars monastery cemetery in Ipswich, Suffolk. It was really surprising that a man from Africa would be buried there some time between 1258 and 1300. I just wouldn't think about people getting around that much back then. And the monastery part seems random until you get to the end of the episode. Again, I learned a lot from this one! But to be honest, I was still left with a few questions.

I'm anxious to watch more History Cold Case episodes! There seem to be a lot of them on YouTube. It would appear that this was/is a pretty popular show.

So back to the Michaels descriptions. We'll continue with this awkward display:

I didn't realize there was a skeleton couple taking a selfie on that second shelf until now.

The yoga skeletons seem really hot this year, which is fine by me. I'm in that yoga doing, skeleton loving demographic.  A close-up of the pillow:

A tiny unicorn skeleton!

Only 1976? I'm used to Halloween labels saying something along the lines of 1692.

A very cool pillow:

Skeleton keys:

One of those paintable skulls:

This was one of my favorite skeleton items - a series of X-Rays. There was a pelvis down there, but I could only hold this so well while taking a picture with my other hand. There's something about the way that this is hanging that makes me feel like this person has a reeeaaaally long neck.

This one reminds me of me. These skeletons are so relatable.

This one is a retro looking pick, which appears far larger here than it is in reality.

Michaels has some pretty strong skeleton stuff this year, hey? I think the yoga skellies and the skeleton dragon would be the most fun to sit around. The X-Ray is up near the top of my list too because it's so unique.