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Infants Buried Wearing Other Children's Skulls As 'Helmets'

EnolaGaia

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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I don't recall ever encountering this sort of burial ritual or practice before. Here's the introductory / overview portion of the article, along with a photo of one of the skull-wearing skulls ...

2 Infants Were Buried Wearing Helmets Made from Kids' Skulls. And Archaeologists Are Puzzled.

Two infants were buried some 2,100 years ago wearing "helmets" made from the skulls of other children, archaeologists have discovered.

The remains of the two infants were found with nine other burials at a site called Salango, on the coast of central Ecuador. The archaeologists who excavated the burials between 2014 and 2016 recently published the details of their findings in the journal Latin American Antiquity.

The team says this is the only known case in which children's skulls were used as helmets for infants being buried. The scientists don't know what killed the infants and children. ...

The helmets were placed tightly over the infants' heads, the archaeologists found. It's likely that the older children's skulls still had flesh on them when they were turned into helmets, because without flesh, the helmets likely would not have held together, the archaeologists noted.

One infant's "face looked through and out of the cranial vault" — the space in the skull that holds the brain — the archaeologists wrote. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/infants-buried-wearing-skull-helmets.html

SkullWithinSkull-A.jpg
 
I saw this - I've not seen it before either!
 
Here are the bibliographic particulars and the abstract from the published paper on this find ...

Unique Infant Mortuary Ritual at Salango, Ecuador, 100 BC
Sara L. Juengst, Richard Lunniss, Abigail Bythell and Juan José Ortiz Aguilu

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.79
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2019
Abstract
The human head was a potent symbol for many South American cultures. Isolated heads were often included in mortuary contexts, representing captured enemies, revered persons, and symbolic “seeds.” At Salango, a ritual complex on the central coast of Ecuador, excavations revealed two burial mounds dated to approximately 100 BC. Among the 11 identified burials, two infants were interred with “helmets” made from the cranial vaults of other juveniles. The additional crania were placed around the heads of the primary burials, likely at the time of burial. All crania exhibited lesions associated with bodily stress. In this report, we present the only known evidence of using juvenile crania as mortuary headgear, either in South America or globally.
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SOURCE: https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...uador-100-bc/288F1E104204E9FB0C7D2308878FAC9C
 
There is a pokemon which wears it's dead mother's skull on it's head. Which probably isn't relevant to this.
 
Trying to formulate a hypothesis about the intended symbolic or ritualistic significance of these "helmets" is a mind-bending exercise.

I was particularly taken by this one passage:

One infant's "face looked through and out of the cranial vault" — the space in the skull that holds the brain — the archaeologists wrote. ...
Click to expand...

... which suggests the overlaid skull may have been positioned so as to serve as more of a "mask" than a "helmet." If one approaches this practice in terms of "mask" (i.e., some sort of symbolic camouflage or masquerade) it opens up all sorts of odd possibilities.
 
I also wonder whether the skulls come from children within a family (e.g., siblings). If there's a consistent familial connection between the two skulls it may well provide a key clue in deciphering the symbolic intent.
 
Again not really relevant. In New Guinea they use their relative's skulls as pillows for sleeping. Apparently it keeps bad spirits away.
 
I'll join in with another not/possibly relevant :)

I'm looking for the name of a male Irish artist, still working within the last 20 years, who did a whole series of heads and skulls, exploring the whole Tain Bo Cuailnge culture and contemporary reactions to it. Both painting and sculpture I think. Maybe starts with a B?

I'm mentioning him because this part of his work strikes me as very close to the numinous.

@Indrid Drood This is the sort of thing I meant about using other sources, seeking analogy for a fuller understanding :)

@ramonmercado Any idea of who I mean? I went to the exhibitions in Dublin some years back and have the catalogue somewhere :(
 
Louis le Brocquy?
 
Frideswide said:
I'll join in with another not/possibly relevant :)

I'm looking for the name of a male Irish artist, still working within the last 20 years, who did a whole series of heads and skulls, exploring the whole Tain Bo Cuailnge culture and contemporary reactions to it. Both painting and sculpture I think. Maybe starts with a B?

I'm mentioning him because this part of his work strikes me as very close to the numinous.

@Indrid Drood This is the sort of thing I meant about using other sources, seeking analogy for a fuller understanding :)

@ramonmercado Any idea of who I mean? I went to the exhibitions in Dublin some years back and have the catalogue somewhere :(
Click to expand...

Louis le Brocquy Táin illustrations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_le_Brocquy_Táin_illustrations
 
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