TRAV EL + LE I S U R E
The use of the tooth in religious art
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EM I LY W I L L IA MS Georgia ’20 ASDA Contributing Editor
HUMANS AND RELIGION have existed side by side throughout the millennia. Societies all over the world elevate what may be seen to an outside observer as mundane and commonplace alongside rare and precious objects, underscoring the importance of everyday life and the beauty that surrounds us as we go about our days. One such item that has been used throughout history in religion and other spiritual practices is the tooth. Like many objects found in the natural world, teeth are multifunctional: They can be carved to represent different objects, incorporated into different materials for religious purposes, or used as representations of the human or animal from which they came. One practice found throughout many religions is the preservation of body parts after death. Many cultures the world over venerate relics: physical objects associated directly with a human of importance, usually religious. These can either be parts of the person’s body postmortem or sometimes objects the human interacted with, such as clothing or tools. The tooth in particular makes a practical relic. There are up to 32 teeth available per person, allowing the teeth to be separated as individual relics and dispersed or sold. Teeth don’t rot or smell once cleaned, and their size allows easy transportation. Two notable tooth religious relics are, in the Christian tradition, the reliquary of Mary Magdalene’s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, in the Buddhist tradition, the shrine to Buddha’s tooth in Singapore. In the Christian New Testament, Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jesus, most noted for her witness to Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection, believed to have occurred around 33 CE. The reliquary of Mary Magdalene was fabricated in Tuscany, Italy, in the 14th and 15th centuries specifically to house the relic.
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VOLUME 4 NUMBER 2
TRAV E L + L EISUR E
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One such item that has been used throughout history in religion and other spiritual practices is the tooth.
FEBRUARY 2020
The main body of the reliquary is constructed of gilt copper and silver and is topped with a roundel of Christ painted in verre églomisé, a technique in which the back side of a piece of glass is painted in reverse order to create an image then seen through the glass. Inside a hollowed-out rock crystal egg sits a posterior tooth, supposedly belonging to Mary Magdalene herself. (See images 1 and 2.) Though it is unknown how the tooth traveled to Tuscany, the reliquary was likely produced for a Fransciscan monastery and would have probably been housed within the its chapel. Though today the reliquary is perhaps valued more for its beauty and craftsmanship than its religious implications, during its tenure at the monastery, the relic would have been venerated as a memorial to Mary Magdalene herself, with the tooth standing in as a direct representation of the holy woman. The most popular teeth in Western Christianity, though, may belong to St. Apollonia, the patron saint of dentists and toothaches. She is often depicted in art holding a pair of forceps, an image of her martyrdom in which her teeth were extracted as torture. The extractions also were often shown, as seen in this German 15th century hand-colored woodcut, housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (See image 3.) On the other side of the world and 500 years after the fabrication of the Met’s reliquary, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum was built in 2007 in Singapore’s Chinatown district. This temple houses what is regarded by Buddhists as Buddha’s left canine. The Buddha was a monk, teacher and philosopher whose teachings make up the basis of Buddhism. His teachings were passed down via oral traditions and originally written down about 400 years after his death. Thus, the Buddha’s teeth held in Singapore and Sri Lanka are said to be about 2,400 years old. The tooth itself is held in a stupa, a dome-shaped Buddhist shrine, which weighs 3,500 kg and uses 320 kg of solid gold. Only monks are allowed to view the tooth itself while attendees
to the shrine may only enter the outside prayer space. This tooth is an active object of veneration in that it is currently held in a living worship environment. The entire temple complex functions to allow worship, daily life and learning to occur side by side, all inspired by and in honor of a single tooth. In the modern era, though religious relics are less common, the physical presence of cultural icons is still held in significance after death, and teeth are no exception. The teeth of many famous people have been sold at auctions throughout the past century. Winston Churchill, John Lennon and Elvis Presley have all had their dentition up for grabs in the past decade. Lennon’s extracted molar was sold for $31,000 in 2011, according to Rolling Stone, and a stone model of Elvis’ teeth and a porcelain-fused-tometal crown for $10,000 in 2012, both to Dr. Michael Zuk, a dentist in Alberta. Only time will tell which teeth last through the centuries, with or without such beautiful housing as the religious relics. # 3
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