Pre- Incan Trepaned Skull

COULD THIS SKULL HAVE BEEN USED AS ONE OF MANKINDS MOST PRIMITIVE MIRLITONS ?

This is one of the first casts ever made of an extraordinarily rare artifact of the Tihuanaca culture. The original skull from which this replica was procured came from the state of Chuquisach, Bolivia and dates to 600 AD. It measures 8 inches long by 5.5 inches wide and 5.5 inches high.

The specimen is a middle-aged female with exquisite dentition and a distinctively elongated skull produced by tight wrapping at a young age. During her life, this woman underwent the ancient surgical procedure of trepanation (also know as trephination) in which a portion of the skull is removed to alleviate headaches and release "bad spirits". Evidence of bone regrowth shows that the woman lived for some time following the procedure.

This is an example of abrasion trepanation in which the skull is cut using horizontal slices until the dura is reached, a slower but safer method than the square cuts produced by slicing vertically into the skull and removing the bone in one piece. Trepanation is one of the earliest forms of surgery known, and for such a primitive procedure actually had a fairly high survival rate.

Trepaned skulls are almost impossible to acquire, and we are lucky to have had an original piece of such beauty. This is the first cast of that specimen to be shown to the public.

dentition n. 1. Zoology. The type, number, and arrangement of a set of teeth. 2. The process of growing new teeth; teething.

trephine, Medicine. n. 1. A surgical instrument having circular, sawlike edges, used to cut out disks of bone, usually from the skull.

„trephine, trephined, trephining, trephines. To operate on with a trephine. „trephination n.