Skull collector, Aiden Baker, 31 tells all about what it's like living with a house full of skeletons.
Zoe Owen
"Do you want anything
to drink? I can put the kettle on if you want? I can see on your face they're
freaking you out, it'll stop feeling like you're being watched soon [laughs],
everyone gets freaked out by them when they first come in here but you do learn
to ignore them". I'm sat in a living room in Aiden's house. He's greeted
me with a massive grin and bubbly, excited attitude before leading me into his
living room, where I'm faced with a cabinet full of human skulls.
The tattoo artist from
the midlands has been collecting human skulls since 2014. He tells me "I
bought my first one because I wanted to get a look at a real human skull under
different lighting and from loads of angles so I'd be able to draw them up
better for tattoos". Since then, he's become interested in adding to his
collection, and over the past four years has accumulated five human skulls, and
various other human body parts. Also in his collection are some animal remains
including a fully articulated bat which he has hanging upside down in a display
cabinet by the fireplace.
Talking about the ethics
behind it, Aiden says that "it is all very ethical, all of the sites I
purchase from are legitimate and I've found that most of the human remains I've
come across online have been found in excavated graveyards in the gardens of
people moving into houses on the land that are hundreds of years old with no traceable
ancestors. It is important to me to purchase and own skulls that are as
ethically sourced as possible". As for what got him into starting a
collection, he's not really sure "I suppose it was just really cool that I
had a head in my house you know? I've always been into things that are a bit
weird and obscure and ten I just had this real life human sitting on the coffee
table one day and it looked really cool there. My girlfriend was the one who
suggested I continued to purchase them to be honest. Then it turned into other
body parts [gesturing to the articulated spin on the hearth] and then animals
too because why not?"
As for the price of such
pieces, they can break the bank.
Looking online, you can purchase fully intact human skulls for upwards of £700,
with others with teeth attached going for up to £2000. A favourite of Aiden’s
own collection is his most recent purchase, a human skull with three teeth and
hair attached to the top, which he paid £1300 for. As for animal skeletons,
they can be purchased relatively cheaply, from £50.
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