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Archaeologists excavating skeletal remains at Çatalhöyük in Turkey. Source: Anadolu Agency

Evidence of 8,500-Year-Old Head Surgery Excavated at Çatalhöyük

During ongoing excavations at the 9,000-year-old extinct Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey, a team of archaeologists discovered something remarkable. While examining the skeleton of a...
Representative image of a Copper Age woman undergoing trepanation. Source: Created by OpenAI's DALL-E, an AI image generation model

Woman Who Lived in Spain 4,500 Years Ago Survived Two Radical Head Surgeries

Researchers analyzing a woman’s skeleton unearthed from a Copper Age graveyard on the Iberian Peninsula discovered clear and unmistakable proof that this individual had undergone two surgeries to her...
Trepanned skulls have been found worldwide, from Siberia to Turkey to Peru. Pictured: Peruvian trepanation patients. Source: University of Miami

Was this Trepanned Skull Found in Turkey the Work of Magicians or Medics?

Researchers in Turkey have unearthed yet another trepanned skull. But was this brutal operation the work of magicians or medics? While the academic disciplines of neurology and neurosurgery didn't...
Artist’s rendition of Inca skull surgery. Credit: ThomasH

Horrifying Surgical Kit Found in 1,000-Year-Old Surgeon Tomb in Peru

An ancient surgeon’s tomb has been discovered in Peru containing his grisly surgical weapons, including knives, needles and tumis – sharp metallic tools used for medical or sacrificial purposes...
The elongated skull of a Peruvian warrior who underwent skull surgery 2,000 years ago. Source: Museum of Osteology

2,000-Year-Old Peruvian Underwent Successful Skull Surgery

A skull housed at the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma is causing quite a stir. The ancient elongated skull, dating back 2,000 years, once belonged to a Peruvian warrior. After being injured during...
A new CT scan of the Tashtyk death mask has uncovered the face of the ancient Tashtyk man, revealing he had a scar on his face from a wound stitched up after his death. Source: ©The State Hermitage Museum / The Siberian Times

Tashtyk Death Mask Scan Reveals Evidence of Prehistoric Surgery

The surgically enhanced face and skull of an ancient tattooed Tashtyk man, hidden behind a stirring gypsum death mask for 1,700 years, has been 3D-visualized for the first time. Discovered wearing a...
Ancient skulls bearing evidence of trephination - a telltale hole surgically cut into the cranium - found in Peru.             Source: University of Miami

Trephination: The Oldest Evidenced Surgery Still in Use Today?

Trephination (known also as trepanning, trepanation, trephining, or making a burr hole), is a surgical procedure, which involves the drilling of a hole in the skull of a living person. Trephination...
Surgical instruments of ancient physicians. Credit: Kai Beercrafter / Adobe Stock

The Gory History of Barber Surgeons: Medieval Medicine Gone Mad

It’s no surprise that the history of medicine had a rocky and somewhat gruesome journey before reaching its current, modern state. From the earliest meddling in surgery in Classical Antiquity to the...
Burial Number 12 at Bogomolny, warrior with evidence of brain surgery by trepanning in skull. Inset, close up of trepanned skull

Remains Show Brain Surgery Not Battle Killed This Sarmatian Warrior 1,800 Years Ago

Archaeologists in Russia have found the grave of a warrior who did not die directly of his battle wounds but as a result of a failed surgical procedure performed on his skull. Near him was found a...
Human skulls have been found with evidence of craniotomy.

Skulls Show Evidence Ancient Chinese Brain Surgeons Operated 3,000 Years Ago

Chinese experts have determined that two skulls found in a historic site show evidence of ancient craniotomy. The finds are being taken to demonstrate that craniotomy, along with other advanced...
The black sarcophagus was found to contain three skeletons and lots of sewage.

Rotten Mummies of the Black Sarcophagus Begin the Identification Process

Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt announced on Sunday that a team of researchers headed by Dr. Zeinab Hashish, Director of the Department of Studies...
More ancient skulls bearing evidence of trepanation - a tell-tale hole surgically cut into the cranium - have been found in Peru than the combined number found in the rest of the world.

Ancient Peru's Cranial Surgeons Were Twice as Skilled as American Civil War Doctors

Even with a highly skilled neurosurgeon, the most effective anesthesia, and all the other advances of modern medicine, most of us would cringe at the thought of undergoing cranial surgery today...
Skeleton with a hole in the skull.  Source: wellphoto/Shutterstock.com via The Conversation

Drilling Holes in the Skull was Never a Migraine Cure

Trepanation – the technique of removing bone from the skull by scraping, sawing, drilling or chiselling – has long fascinated those interested in the darker side of medical history. One stock tale is...
Before Antibiotics:  Ancient Medical Procedures That Still Baffle Scientists

Before Antibiotics: Ancient Medical Procedures That Still Baffle Scientists

In the modern age, when we think of surgery, we think of doctors working in sterile environments using finely crafted tools on an anesthetised patient. That was not always the case. Early surgical...
Images A, C and D show incisions while B shows the hole drilled into the skull.

Evidence of the Earliest ‘Skull Cult’ Activity: Drilled and Carved Skulls Found at the World’s Oldest Temple

Just as people at the world’s oldest known temple site in Southeast Turkey began to make the transition from hunter-gatherers to a more settled lifestyle, they also started a “skull cult” in which...
Extraction of the Stone of Folly

Five Bloodcurdling Medical Procedures That are No Longer Performed … Thankfully

Surgeries and treatments come and go. A new BMJ guideline, for example, makes “strong recommendations” against the use of arthroscopic surgery for certain knee conditions. But while this key-hole...
Evidence Emerges of Cranial Surgery in China Dating Back More than 3,500 Years

Evidence Emerges of Cranial Surgery in China Dating Back More than 3,500 Years

New evidence has emerged that suggests ancient surgeons in China were drilling or scraping holes in people’s heads more than 3,500 years ago. The process, known as trepanation, was used in various...

Reconstructing Brain Surgery as It Was Conducted Around 3,000 Years Ago

A step by step academic investigation into how Bronze Age medics conducted trepanation operations in Siberia has been conducted based on a male skull found last year in the Nefteprovod II burial...
Main: An ancient skull found in Peru with evidence of surgical intervention. Credit: Danielle Kurin. Inset: 4,000-year-old “scalpels”

4,000-Year-Old Stone Scalpels Found in Peru Shed Light on Ancient Medical Practices

A team of archeologists has unearthed a set of slate-stone instruments that are similar to scalpels. The artifacts are 4,000 years old and are believed to have been used by ancient Peruvian healers...
Representational image showing trepanation. A trepanated skull of a girl from the Neolithic period (3500 BC); the patient survived. Natural History Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland.

7,000-Year-Old Head Surgery: One of the Oldest Trepanned Skulls Discovered in Sudan

A remarkable discovery was made during excavations in a Neolithic settlement in Omdurman in Sudan – an ancient skeleton with signs of trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull), dating back around 7,...
Ritually Motivated Traditions May Be Behind Holes Drilled into Skulls in Prehistoric Russia

Ritually Motivated Traditions May Be Behind Holes Drilled into Skulls in Prehistoric Russia

Researchers believe holes cut in people’s skulls more than 4,000 years ago in Russia involved some kind of rite rather than medical surgery. Amazingly, some of the people, who were apparently very...
Eight Impressive but Terrifying Cases of Ancient Surgery

Eight Impressive but Terrifying Cases of Ancient Surgery

It is hard to fathom the way in which invasive surgery was carried out prior to the development of modern anaesthesia, but ancient people around the world have been cutting and drilling into the...
Ancient skull was drilled and harvested for medicine

Ancient skull was drilled and harvested for medicine in the 18th century

The skull of a man who was beheaded in the 15 th century was at the center of a mystery until experts revealed the cranium was harvested to be used as medicine. Within the crypt of Italy’s Otranto...
Skull of male with trepanation, who had a hereditary deformation of the skull

New study reveals trepanation surgery in ancient Siberia

Russian scientists are examining ancient human skulls and testing bronze tools on a modern skull to see how doctors in Siberia more than 2,000 years ago performed brain surgery on three adults. It is...

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