The British Museum To flesh out the features on the so-called Jericho Skull, archaeologists at the British Museum have worked for more than two years to reconstruct the face of a man whose skull had been reshaped by ritual throughout his long life. While he was an infant, his head had been bound tightly with cloth to change its shape. After he died at a ripe old age, his skull was then plastered, decorated, and put on display. This Jericho Skull gives us a glimpse of life in the Levant long before the rise of religions that describe a great battle at the city’s walls. Jericho, located today in Palestine, dates back more than 11,000 years and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. It’s very likely that this man lived behind the earliest versions of Jericho’s infamous walls, built more than 9,000 years ago, but that doesn’t mean he lived a hardscrabble existence threatened by war. Recent archaeological investigation of Jericho’s Neolithic walls shows that they were not used for defense. Based on layers of silt that collected around them, researchers surmise that Jericho’s first walls were built to prevent the city from being flooded during the rainy season. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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This man’s skull was ritualistically transformed 9,000 years ago in Jericho