Almost every imaginable item has been auctioned off at Sotheby's in London, but this was a first: a skull described as "unusually long and narrow ... jawbone lacking." It fetched £ 1,650 ($3,200) last week from the Swedish Royal Academy of Science, which decided in 1960 that the skull is almost certainly that of Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th century Swedish scientist and mys tic. His writings and visions form the heart of the 50,000-member Swedenborgian religion.
The skull was stolen from Swedenborg's London grave, 44 years after his 1772 burial, by a retired sea...
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