These eerie archaeological artifacts are not fakes. They are systematically found all over the world. The strange elongated skulls have become a real nightmare for scientists who have been struggling for many years to solve this ugly phenomenon …
The barbaric custom of deforming the head existed among several ancient peoples. With the help of "inquisitorial tools", they formed mystical skulls.
Unusual sculptors
In one of the museums of Peru, an unusually elongated skull, found by archaeologists in 1995, is kept as an exhibit. Its estimated age is 10 thousand years.
It turns out that the ancient Incas deliberately tried to lengthen the shape of their skull. This custom dates back to around 3800-3200 BC. and lasted until the arrival of the conquistadors.
Bishop Diego Landa, who found old traditions, described how two boards were placed on a child's head in a cradle - one in front and the other behind - and tightened tightly, "until the baby's head became flat and in the shape they all wanted." At first, the ovoid skulls with some kind of monstrous bumps amazed archaeologists. However, the practice of deformation was so widespread across all continents and eras (the first deliberately deformed Neanderthal skull dates back to 45,000 BC!) That it was time not to be surprised, but to study the cause of these phenomena.
And soon, on the territory of the American continents, in ancient burials, not only strange skulls were found, but also devices for their deformation (bandages and plaques), and even special children's beds on which babies were fixed so that they could not remove these foreign objects from themselves.
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Deformation of skulls in South America has been recorded in a number of cultures - Chavin, Lauricoca, Paracas, Nazca, Puerto Moorin, Incas and other peoples.
European footprint
In 1820, a skull with traces of artificial deformation was found in Austria. And in the first half of the 19th century within Russia. In 1867, two strange skulls were found near the mouth of the Don, and in 1880 - on the banks of the Volga near Samara. Eight elongated female heads were found during excavations in Ust-Tara in 2001-2004. And these are not humanoids, but quite earthly women who lived in the distant past on the territory of the Omsk region! Fragments of clothing were found in the burial, and at the head of one of the women there was an earthen bowl with a horse bone - probably the remains of a memorial soup.
Even by the beginning of the 20th century, wild places remained in the world where people continued to bandage their heads, and in some places this practice has survived to this day. For example, Africans from the Mang Betu tribe continue to mutilate their children today. But what is the point of changing the shape of the head? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, because each people put their ideas into these actions. In some cases, this was done for beauty. In others - as a distinctive feature of people of the "highest caste".
Let us recall that the beauty of Ancient Egypt, Queen Nefertiti, had an elongated and clearly artificially deformed skull. And she was the queen. Perhaps the cone-shaped head was a distinctive feature of the upper class, the very mark by which a child from a noble family was recognized. For example, in Tahiti and Hawaii, only the ruling class could change the shape of their heads. Thus, noble people could be easily distinguished from any subject. Some researchers put forward a version that by deforming the head, people tried to affect various parts of the cerebral cortex and thus achieve stable changes in the psyche and physiology. After all, a change in the shape of the skull also affects various areas of the cerebral cortex, which contributes to a change in certain characteristics and skills of a person.
For example, the famous Greek physician Hippocrates reports that the Greek aristocracy used "head clenching" for their young daughters. It is assumed that the purpose of this procedure was to increase the attractiveness of women to men and to reduce their intelligence.
But medical studies have found that annular deformation … does not lead to any serious violations of the physiological functions of the human body. At the same time, they noted some deformation of the sphenoid bone, the so-called Turkish saddle, in which the pituitary gland is localized, which regulates the metabolism and hormones, the functions of a number of endocrine glands, and the activity of the nervous system. In case of deliberate deformation of the head, the angle of inclination of the "Turkish saddle" slightly changes, which can cause epilepsy … Perhaps this feature helped the members of the priestly caste to enter a trance faster when "communicating with the gods."
There is also an opinion that the deformation of the head could provoke increased aggression, which was a great help for the education of real warriors. It is not by chance that the most massive change in the shape of the skull took place among the most warlike peoples of antiquity - the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, and later among the Germans.
Thanks to the enlargement of the upper part of the skull, which is responsible for logical thinking and a penchant for the exact sciences, the ancient people of the Nazca Desert and Paracas Peninsula could grow geniuses.
But there is one more assumption - blind imitation of a physical disability. Perhaps one of the leaders of the ancient Indians had a congenital defect - a deformed, elongated head. As a result of imitation, such a strange custom could arise as an artificial change in the shape of the head.
Puzzles from the past
Various operations on the skull were very common among the ancient peoples of the whole world. As it turned out, holes in the back of the back of the head were drilled to reduce intracranial pressure, to save from headaches. In addition, in the old days it was believed that if you make a hole in the skull, then evil spirits will fly out of it, and thus you can get rid of epilepsy and mental illness. But more trepanations were done on the left side. In this way, the ancient people, apparently, tried to suppress the left hemisphere of the brain in order to improve the action of the right "extrasensory" hemisphere, which has "paranormal" abilities - clairvoyance, predicting the future. Sometimes skulls were found, on which several trepanations were made. Judging by the traces of overgrowth of the holes, people who underwent this operation, as a rule, survived.
In the French village of Ensisheim in an ancient burial, scientists have discovered the skeleton of a 50-year-old man. His skull immediately attracted the attention of researchers: it had two neat holes (in the front of the forehead - about 6 cm in diameter, in the upper part of the skull a couple of centimeters wider). They were definitely artificial and not the result of injury or trauma. Interestingly, the regeneration of bone tissue in these places was completed before the man died, and there were no signs of postoperative infection. Moreover, both trepanations were performed at different times, that is, the man was successfully operated on twice! He lived after that for at least two years. These operations were carried out 5,000 BC!
Even more incredible skulls were discovered in October 1995 in the Gobi Desert. The shocked archaeologists simply could not believe their eyes: several, obviously human, turtles had real … horns!
Most likely, no matter how fantastic it sounds, the ancients managed to implant horns taken from animals into the skulls. This was probably done either for some ritual purposes, or to intimidate enemies.
“Mysteries of History. Golden Series No. 11 2015