Anatolian skull operated on 5,000 years ago attracts attention

A 5,000-year-old skull found in 1981 during archaeological excavations at the Ikiztepe Mound in Samsun's Bafra district documented the use of the head piercing technique in the Early Bronze Age. While the skull exhibited in Samsun Museum is also examined with interest by citizens, a 1,900-year-old skull that underwent skull surgery with trepanation technique is also exhibited in the same section.

In the information about the skulls in question, the museum said, "Trepanation derives from the Greek word 'trypanon' meaning hole, pierced, auger. This procedure, which anthropologists call 'skull piercing operation', can be defined as the removal of a certain part in a certain area, after the scalp is scraped with a surgical instrument, with a purpose and technique. In these operations, a piece of bone is removed from the skull and the brain is directly exposed to the external environment.

Based on practices in traditional communities and archaeological data, it is accepted that trepanations were performed for many purposes such as head injuries, removal of the evil spirit thought to be located in the head, magic or healing. Such surgeries must also have had a ceremonial background. Therefore, it is not always easy to determine the real purpose of the operations. Approximately 50 examples of trepanation have been identified in Anatolia to date."

Attempted surgical treatment of brain tumor

Trepanations are one of the most important finds from the Early Bronze Age at Ikiztepe. In some of the skulls of Ikiztepe skeletons, cavities of different shapes, which were consciously opened by surgeries, were observed. For this reason, Ikiztepe is considered to be the oldest widespread and developed trepanation center in Anatolia.

Ikiztepe yielded five adult skeletons, one of which belonged to a young adult female and the others to males, with trepanation marks on their skulls. It can be concluded that all but one of the trepanations were caused by cutting, piercing and blunt-edged weapon wounds on the skulls due to the warfare in Ikiztepe during the Early Bronze Age, which resulted in the deaths of many people.

In the only example belonging to an elderly man, the fact that it is seen together with the tumoral formation in the skeleton indicates that the people of Ikiztepe tried to treat some health problems with surgical interventions other than traumas.

Source: Newsroom