Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Bizarre

Dr. Bones… Ray Bandar’s Massive Skull Collection

Recently, our meager collection of skulls increased four-fold when my uncle brought us a huge bag of bones back from Cranbrook, BC, that he and my cousin collected from the side of the highway. I spent the last month or so soaking, scrubbing, rinsing and drying the skulls, and now they decorate my walls and surfaces. It was a lot of work, and very time-consuming – and these were bones that had already been mostly cleaned of flesh by time and animals. This experience has given me a healthy respect for the work that has gone into the 7,000 piece skull collection of Dr. Bones, aka Ray Bandar, a San Francisco based collector of animal skulls and bones, who has been collecting animal remains since the 1940s. He has many of his skulls displayed at the California Academy of Sciences, and a massive “Bone Palace” in his basement. His bone palace is now on display at the California Academy of Sciences, and features the skulls of land and sea animals from all over the world. The gnarliest part about his collecting is that oftentimes, he will extract the skull from a recently dead animal, like a seal that has washed ashore, and is bloated and stinking with decay. Old, dried flesh is gross enough to take off a skull, I can’t imagine what cleaning gooey, rancid, stinking flesh is like! Check out this short documentary about his life below, A Life With Skulls, plus photos of his insane, massive collection!

628x471 (1)

628x471 (2)

628x471 (3)

628x471

Raymond Bandar and his 'Bone Palace"

Bandar_collection_3_31_04_013.sized_

beakedwhale1

Ray-Bandar-bones3-550x378

raybandar03

raybandar15

raywithwhaleskulllarge

skull-collector2_custom-23d2c79001d1f496d3320da16d39228df8f22974-s6-c30

skull-collector3_custom-39afe2e521ec81a9695c099a559ffe0b17a39eb4-s6-c30

skull-collector3

Written By

Meghan MacRae grew up in Vancouver, Canada, but spent many years living in the remote woods. Living in the shadow of grizzly bears, cougars and the other predators of the wilderness taught her about the dark side of nature, and taught her to accept her place in nature's order as their prey. She is co-founder of CVLT Nation.

Relapse DF 92123
Sentient 51423

You May Also Like

Death Doom

#10 BONE WEAPON  THRIVE OR STARVE BONE WEAPON’s new tape THRIVE OR STARVE out on Transylvanian Recordings is so freaking killer!!! This is why we are championing...

Death Doom

Deep, Deep, Deep in the Death Doom underground, two new bands are lurking, about to spread their stench-laden sounds! The names of these filthy...

Doom

From the very first time that I heard the One Man Death Doom Killing Machine called GATEWAY  I have been a FIEND!!! Last year,...

Clothing

CVLT Nation EIGHT brings the heavy with a brutal set of graphics from renowned artists MARK RIDDICK (USA), DANIEL “DESECRATOR” CORCUERA (Chile), VIRAL GRAPHICS...

Copyright © 2020 CVLT Nation.