Elongated skulls continue to fascinate me. I have been collecting pictures of various elongated skulls from all over the world which you can find on my blog, starting on the page Elongated Skulls from Ancient Races. I recently found another intriguing picture of a Peruvian elongated skull, now in the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma state, USA. They posted these pictures on their Facebook page, on April 5, 2020 and with the following text:
Due to popular demand, this skull will be on public display when we reopen the Museum on Monday, June 1st!
For those that missed the original post. This is a Peruvian elongated skull with metal surgically implanted after returning from battle, estimated to be from about 2000 years ago. One of our more interesting and oldest pieces in the collection.
We don’t have a ton of background on this piece, but we do know he survived the procedure! Based on the broken bone surrounding the repair and you can see that it’s tightly fused together. It was a successful surgery.
Note: we don’t know the metal. Traditionally, silver and gold was used for this type of procedure.
It was not on display, but “Due to popular demand, this skull will be on public display when we reopen the Museum on Monday, June 1st!” (post on May 29, 2020)
So, somebody came home with a dent in his skull, and probably a headache.Think about it, they first had to cut away the skin, pull out all the little bone fragment at the center of the impact. Then make an exact outline on a piece of papyrus or something like that. Then they cut a silver plate with that shape, and made sure it fit exactly into the cut-away opening, and make it stay that way. Maybe they put the skin back over. All that without any infection. They wound healed the bone fused together and fused with the silver plate. Hopefully his headaches disappeared. At least he got to live many more years! They must have had a good surgeon.
Here are the pictures:
Cosmick Traveler 
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