Located in the Saint-Paul Aurélien cathedral in Saint-Pol-de-Léon, Les Étagères de la nuit (“Shelves of the night”) contain 31 “skull boxes” that date from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Each box contains one genuine human skull, most of which you can have a quick peek at through a heart- or trefoil-shaped hole. Skull boxes were commonly used to keep a track of the deceased while clearing out the graveyards in order to leave space for new tombs. Five years after the body had been buried, when the remains had decomposed, the…
