CULTURE

Memento Mori: How Smiling Skeletons Have Reminded Us to Live Fully Since Ancient Times


The expres­sion “YOLO” may now be just passé enough to require expla­na­tion. It stands, as only some of us would try to deny remem­ber­ing, for “You only live once,” a sen­ti­ment that reflects an eter­nal truth. Some bod­ies of reli­gious belief don’t strict­ly agree with it, of course, but that was also true 24 cen­turies ago, when an unknown artist cre­at­ed the so-called “YOLO mosa­ic” that was unearthed in South­ern Turkey in the twen­ty-tens. That arti­fact, whose depic­tion of a wine-drink­ing skele­ton liv­ing it up even in death has delight­ed thou­sands upon thou­sands of view­ers on the inter­net, is at the cen­ter of the new Hochela­ga video above.

To the side of that mer­ry set of bones is the Greek text “ΕΥΦΡΟΣΥΝΟΣ,” often trans­lat­ed as “Be cheer­ful and live your life.” As Hochela­ga cre­ator Tom­mie Trelawny points out, that’s a some­what loose inter­pre­ta­tion, since the word “rough­ly means ‘joy­ful-mind­ed,’ or sim­ply ‘cheer­ful.’ ” A more impor­tant ele­ment not often tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion is the mosaic’s con­text.

It was dis­cov­ered dur­ing the exca­va­tion of a third-cen­tu­ry Gre­co-Roman vil­la, where it con­sti­tut­ed one end of a din­ing-room trip­tych. In the mid­dle was a scene, a trope in come­dies of the time, of a toga-clad young “gate­crash­er” run­ning in hopes of a free din­ner. On the oth­er end is a most­ly destroyed image of a type of fig­ure known as “the African fish­er­man.”

Tak­en togeth­er, this domes­tic art­work could reflect the Epi­cure­an teach­ing that “life should be about pur­su­ing hap­pi­ness and enjoy­ing the sim­ple plea­sures while you still can.” But if the “cheer­ful skele­ton,” as Trelawny calls it, draws atten­tion from the rest of the trip­tych, that speaks to its sym­bol­ic pow­er across the ages. Com­mon not only in ancient Rome, the sym­bol­ic fig­ure also makes vivid appear­ances in medieval art (espe­cial­ly dur­ing the time of the Black Death), Renais­sance por­trai­ture, the Día de Muer­tos-ready draw­ings of José Guadalupe Posa­da, and even Dis­ney car­toons like The Skele­ton Dance. As long as death remains unde­feat­ed, each era needs its own memen­to mori, and the cheer­ful skele­ton, in all its para­dox­i­cal appeal, will no doubt keep turn­ing up to the job — some­times with a drink in hand.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

19th-Cen­tu­ry Skele­ton Alarm Clock Remind­ed Peo­ple Dai­ly of the Short­ness of Life: An Intro­duc­tion to the Memen­to Mori

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Epi­cu­rus and His Answer to the Ancient Ques­tion: What Makes Us Hap­py?

Cel­e­brate The Day of the Dead with The Clas­sic Skele­ton Art of José Guadalupe Posa­da

The Skele­ton Dance, Vot­ed the 18th Best Car­toon of All Time, Is Now in the Pub­lic Domain (1929)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.





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