Happy Halloween!! Thank you for so many great responses! We had a tough time narrowing them down, but you can read our favorite 30 submissions here: http://cranioklepty.com/pick-a-skull/fav...

We'll be contacting winners directly, but feel free to send us your address right away to receive your copy of CRANIOKLEPTY: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius by Colin Dickey (http://cranioklepty.com).

Cheers!
rachel / Unbridled Books

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I just hope no one gets mine. At least not yet. My 1st thought is Yourik, but you probably want a real one. I'll go with Sir Walter Raleigh.

Catherine the Great would totally appreciate the irony of me drinking mead from her skull. (it was after all, the Rus, or redhairs, who gave Russia her name)

hmmmmmmmmmmm...*thinking mode* GOSH! im out of it. i'll go ahead with the salad bowl sounds more interesting...but then i'd want a good brain with that so i'll probably get Plato's?

Da Vinci isn’t a bad choice, but I think I’d have to go with Henry VIII. Or maybe Maximilien Robespierre. I can’t help but think that Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette might appreciate the irony.

George wrote: "what a ghoulish bunch you are. I think maybe you're in the wrong group or maybe need to establish a new one, something like History is Horrible or History gives me Horrors. Halloween is next month."

I dunno, George. Sounds like all this fits perfectly with History is Not Boring! Love all these responses, though some folks forgot to mention whose skull they'd pick! Me, I'd go with da Vinci. He'd totally understand.

As for me, I think I wouldn't mind having Vlad the Impaler's skull around for a conversational piece, although not for dinnerware. I'm not sure if I could work up the courage to enter his tomb to take it though.

Yorick. I'd want Yorick's skull. (Oh wait, is he a fictional character.....)

I'm with George. If we ever get together to have a potluck supper, I'm bringing my own dishes.

I'll take the Elephant Man's skull just to add to my collection of skull bowls ;)

Hmmm...I'd like Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria's skull and Marie Vetsera's. I've heard very interesting things about them, but not from the most reliable sources (wikipedia and youtube commenters). I'm curious to see if those things are true or not.

LOL! This thread turned out well!

After the Battle of Pliska (modern Bulgaria) on July 26, 811, the victorious Khan Krum is said to have encased the skull of the defeated (and deceased) Eastern Roman Emperor Nicephorus in silver, and used it as a cup for wine-drinking.

Marco wrote: "Brain hotdog and eyeball sausages!"

Isn't that just standard with hotdogs and sausages?

what a ghoulish bunch you are. I think maybe you're in the wrong group or maybe need to establish a new one, something like History is Horrible or History gives me Horrors. Halloween is next month.

Brain hotdog and eyeball sausages!

Soup bowl? <shrug> No one ever really knows what's in them anyway. Kind of like hot dogs & sausage, you really don't want to know.

Oh I like that - hint of a 300 year old brain ;) nice Barbarossa, you're invited round my house any day ;)

Soup bowl then? :P

Pretty small & deep for a salad.

Sepulchre Salad, kind of like a Caesar but with a hint of 300 year old brain.

remind me not to eat over at your house.

I'd use them as a salad bowl.

Rachel (aka. Kaiserin Sisi) wrote: "Technically, all skulls are different. And I'm sure that it's more for the sentimental reasons than for the actual differences about the skull."

Or if they had a practical use...as a bookend? Or if they'd been turned into a goblet?

Technically, all skulls are different. And I'm sure that it's more for the sentimental reasons than for the actual differences about the skull.

Different bumps.

Wouldn't the skull of a well-known person and the skull of a peasant be exactly the same?

We thought this macabre and historical exercise might interest the folks in this group. The question is: If you could steal a skull, any skull, whose would you choose, and why?

Cranioklepty (the theft of skulls) has fallen out of fashion, but it wasn’t very long ago that stealing skulls was viewed by some as akin to possessing genius. Colin Dickey has written the history of this peculiar kind of obsession in his forthcoming CRANIOKLEPTY: GRAVE ROBBING AND THE SEARCH FOR GENIUS (coming out later this month). The after-death stories of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sir Thomas Browne and many others have never before been told in such detail and vividness. The desire to own the skulls of the famous, for study, for sale, for public (and private) display, seems to be instinctual and irresistible in some people. So, again, WHOSE SKULL WOULD YOU DIG?

You can send us your choice—by responding to this discussion (preferred!), posting a comment on our profile page, or via email (cranioklepty@gmail.com) between September 9 and October 21, 2009. We’ll be posting the most lively ones (no pun intended) on Cranioklepty.com and as a thank you, we’ll be sending a copy of CRANIOKLEPTY to the folks whose selections most intrigued us. Winners will be announced on October 31, 2009 (yes, on Halloween). For complete rules and regulations visit http://cranioklepty.com/pick-a-skull/rul... We do not, for the record, endorse the actual stealing of skulls!