HUMAN SKULL ROUNDELS – POWERS AND ABILITIES OF THE DEAD PRESERVED IN BONE FRAGMENTS
Petia Georgieva, Sofia University
Victoria Russeva, Institute of Experimental Morphology, Pathology and Anthropology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Abstract
Discussing “skull roundels” or “cranial amulets” in anthropological literature began in the nineteenth century, when these terms were introduced. These artifacts are made from carefully cut skull pieces, perforated in the middle and smoothened. Most of them have nearly circular shapes, but some are triangular, trapezoid, or sickle-shaped, with one or more perforations. The earliest ones come from the Epipaleolithic period and there are others from the Neolithic, the Eneolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. The discovery context of most is obscure. Some are from funeral contexts, found both in graves with inhumations as well as in burials with cremation as the funeral rite, but some finds come from settlements. With regard to interpretation, it can be said that all authors agree that these are objects believed to have had magical powers, originating in the spirit of the dead. Some authors assume that these objects were made from the skulls of defeated enemies, and others–that they were made from the skulls of respected ancestors. Skull roundels are also considered as related to trepanations (whether survived or with lethal outcomes) performed for medical purposes. It has been proposed that amulets made from such skulls served as protection against the same conditions. It has also been proposed that skull roundels resulting from medical or ritual trepanations were kept until death to be buried together with the individual to whom they belonged for the preservation of corporeal integrity, but there are no actual finds confirming this hypothesis.
Several newly discovered finds from the Kozareva Mogila site (Kableshkovo, Bulgaria), a settlement and necropolis from the Late Eneolithic, the end of the fifth millennium BC, yield new information. Five cranial roundels were discovered in two adjacent buildings at the settlement. Their shape is circular, with diameters ranging from 5.8 to 9.8 cm. Each of them has a small hole in the middle. Their side edges were diligently polished. Traces of this polishing have been preserved on the convex surface. The central holes were drilled when the objects were made, after separation from the skull—the perforation was done by a rotating movement and is well centered. There is a round scar from a survived trauma on the outer surface of one of the roundels.
Various kinds of marks from interventions on the skulls were found in the necropolis at the same site, in several graves which can be related to the Late Eneolithic. One of the burials belongs to an individual from whose skull a piece was separated; the greater part of the separated fragment was found in a small pit near the grave. One of the fragments has preserved marks of perforation similar to the perforations on the roundels found within the settlement. There are scars from a survived trauma on the skull from another grave analogous to the marks seen on one of the skull roundels from the settlement. Other skulls carry marks of interventions that were either not survived or performed post mortem. The skull of the individual buried in one of the graves has a survived full trepanation.
This site presents a unique combination of finds related to the problems of skull roundels. This allows proposing a more precise reconstruction of the history of this type of finds.