Richard And Jo Demeester's photos with the keyword: skulls

Relics in a chapel in the Otranto Cathedral, the Martyrs of Otranto.

Remains of the Martyrs of Otranto.

The skeletal remains of some 813 residents of Otranto, beheaded in 1480 when the city fell in to the hands of an Ottoman force. They are said to have rejected the option of converting to Islam.

Remains of scores of people were found in the boat houses. These buildings, which would have once been on the shoreline, appear to be where people headed and waited in the hope they would get rescued by sea.

Some of the identified remains of victims killed by the Derg during the Red Terror of the 1970's and 1980's. Also on display were piles of bones from unidentified victims. Somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 people were killed or went missing during Mengistu's time as ruler. Yet another place where you can stand and ponder how incomprehensible it is what some people are capable of doing. And again, as we have seen at similar memorials in a number of places around the world remembering victims of various horrible regimes, people write in hope "Never Again!"

Skulls piled high in the Opdas Mass Burial Cave, Kabayan. The bones are aged between 500 and 1000 years. The cave is literally in the backyard of one of the village families.

Investigations revealed that the victims of this massacre died predominantly due to blunt force impact. The bodies were then bulldozed into the ground.

The remains of hundreds of people massacred in 1918. Bones, skulls, and teeth; all that remains of the bodies of people slaughtered and buried in two trenches and two wells near the town of Quba. The remains were uncovered relatively recently when building works were begun in the area. This location, however, represents only a small sample of the horror, with figures quoting over 16,000 civilians from over 120 villages massacred in the Quba region.

The “Platform Of Skulls”. A place of sacrifice. The Mayans were not that big in the sacrifice department, but Chichén Itzá was a mixture of Mayan and Toltec culture, from the north of Mexico. It appears the Toltecs were sacrifice obsessed, with many sculptures showing decapitations and human heart offerings.