Skeletons Wearing Skull Helmets

22/11 18:45 - Skeletons Wearing Skull Helmets
Archaeologists in Ecuador have excavated a burial site dating back to around 100 BC. The unearthed skeletons included the remains of two children, ages six months and 18 months at the time of death. Both had been fitted with helmets around their heads that were fashioned from skulls of slightly larger children. A report stated that the helmet craniums were "still fleshed" at the time of burial.  This discovery was made at the Salango archaeological dig along the central coast of Ecuador in South America. A pair of burial mounds, dated to around 2,100 years old and belonging to the Guangala people, were excavated between 2014 and 2016. A total of 11 individuals were found buried in the mounds, the most extraordinary of which were two infants adorned with “helmets” or “mortuary headgear,” as termed by the researchers in the study, that were fashioned from the brain case, or cranial vault, of juveniles. Other bits of skull were placed around the heads of the dead infants, which was presumably done at the time of burial.This is the first time skull helmets have been found, and scientists have no clue as to the meaning of the funerary ritual. Read more about the find at Gizmodo. (Image credit: Sara Juengst)...