Method of Preserving the Dead: Encasing the Corpse in Glass(for Bob and Alex)

In 1903, an inventor named Joseph Karwowski was awarded one of the strangest patents : Method of Preserving the Dead by encasing the body in glass!
The Corning Museum of Glass is having a show called Curiosities of Glassmaking, where more than a hundred of "wonderfully odd and mysterious objects fashioned of glass, dating from antiquity to the present day" are exhibited.
For this “curious” exhibition, The Corning Museum of Glass digs into its vast collections to showcase more than a hundred wonderfully odd and mysterious objects fashioned of glass, dating from antiquity to the present day.
Ancient amulets to ward away evil; trick drinking glasses; an optical model of the human eye; and variously tinted, tortoiseshell rimmed lens worn by Victorian tourists to frame suitably artistic views of nature – these are among the odd objects in “Curiosities of Glassmaking.”
The exhibition title refers to a popular 19th-century manual, Curiosities of Glass Making (1849), published in London by the well-known glassmaker Apsley Pellatt. The impulse to collect and display curiosities is both timeless and universal, of course, and American art institutions such as the Corning Museum have evolved in part from the European tradition of the cabinet of curiosities, which juxtaposes odd, intriguing, and unusual objects, often including archaeological artifacts, geological specimens, and exotic trophy animals.(via neatorama)