We're here back in the Human Evolution Lab with Dr. Robert Martin,
who is curator emeritus of human evolution here at the Field Museum,
and today we're going to be talking about artificial head binding in ancient Egypt!
So uh, Bob can you start by telling us a little bit about what artificial head binding is?
Yes, you know, there are various cultural developments, for example, binding feet in China
so that you're getting a permanent change
and this is usually done in connection with the elite in society or particular groups
and so what happens in head binding is that pe..people deliberately set it out from birth
to tightly bind the baby's skull
in different ways so you can have a band across the crown
or you can have it from front to back
the baby's head is flexible for the first couple of years
but after that, the head shape is pretty settled
and so once you've done it, it's done for life
and it makes the head look very distinctive.
EG: And this is achievable because when the baby is born it's cranial bones aren't fused together?
RM: Absolutely.
The key thing is if you look at the skull just before birth
Humans have these gaps called fontanelles, there's a major one on the top of the skull
and there are subsidiary ones on the side.
Those gaps are there to allow flexibility
because we have such big brains
our babies only just passed through the pelvis
this is a female human pelvis, and going through the pelvis it will only go through if it's facing this way.
EG: Wow.
RM: And then when it gets part of the way through, it has to turn 90 degrees
And it's facing backwards. We're the only primates that give birth with our babies facing backwards rather than to the front.
But that's why the bones are so flexible
and that allows you to produce this artificial shape by molding.
EG: Does this impact the fetal development at all?
I mean, does this have a negative impact on any other kind of developmental properties
or things that are happening to a baby?
RM: As long as you don't reduce the volume.
That would be bad news for the brain.
But if you just change the skull shape without changing the volume
As far as we know there are no negative effects of doing this.
EG: Oh, that's good.
And it's interesting that this has come up with such notable figures from history like King Tut
I mean we have this model which wasn't just artistically created to have a flattened head
but there is actual evidence that King Tut had experienced cranial deformation.
With my colleague JP Brown we CAT scanned
several Egyptian mummies in our collection.
And then when we are doing our mummy project
we wanted to get a copy
of this reconstruction by the Smithsonian
when it arrived we unpacked it from the box
Oh my word, that is artificial cranial deformation.
And in fact, you can see a kind of saddle shaped depression over the top of the skull
and then at the back underneath
you've got a counterpart
It's interesting because his father Akhenaten had a skull shape like that
and Akhenaten was married to Nefertiti and it seems that she had this kind of head shape
and they had 6 daughters
All 6 daughters had head shapes like that.
And for many years Egyptologists have described this as an artistic style.
-Sure
We don't have the skulls to check that. But certainly for Akhenaten we have the skull
and we have the skull of King Tut
They definitely had head deformation
and I'm pretty certain that it is artificial
two mummies it was a 40 year old woman
and a priest son called Minirdis when
we produced the 3d print from the skull
then it became absolutely clear that
there was a saddle play shape depression
you can see it has an elongated shape
but it's not extreme it's not like King
Tut but it's subtle but it's there and
so presumably the priests were doing
this to get this distinctive head shape
at least a thousand years later than
King Tut so these are these are two
separate events in time what I've seen
is that there is no written evidence or
record of
like this happening for people in royal
positions or higher society like King
Tut why do you think there wouldn't be a
record of this I think this was done in
secret this was not something that was
to be public knowledge whole idea was to
take a small group of people and
artificially change their head shape so
that they would look different from
everybody else and it kind of spoils the
effect if you tell everybody what you're
doing do you have any other thoughts
about about head binding and its
prevalence in ancient Egypt do you have
any other examples that you might want
to talk about a big question for me as
an anthropologist is why would so many
different human populations
independently hit on the idea of binding
their babies heads and I've mentioned it
at birth you can get misshapen heads and
so you can get most of the shapes that
people then use you get these cone heads
and you also get skulls that are
flattened from front back but I think
one of the main influences was cradle
boarding that many societies in many
societies babies are carried around
strapped to a board on the mother's back
typically there's a bandage around the
head holding the baby's head still
eventually there can produce deformation
but you can recognize it because it's
not regular you it's asymmetrical
whereas in something like King Tut if
you look at this
skull is beautifully symmetrical that is
achieved by deliberately binding the
head but it will be a short step from
carrying babies around and noticing that
you can artificially accidentally change
the head shape to doing it deliberately
I assume there are probably some people
who might think that there were
extraterrestrial influence to the ways
that we you know the shape of the head
and obviously like there are movies that
depict aliens coming to Earth with cone
heads do you do you have any any
anything to say to dispel some of those
rumors that might suggest that alien
life forms are really at play there are
skulls in Peru particularly from
Nazcan Paracas they are so extreme that
it's opened the door to people saying
you know they this is so extreme it
cannot be human and you know with the
Nazca people it was particularly
convincing because you have these Nazca
lines which are absolutely gigantic and
people say well you can only see these
properly from outer space and therefore
they must be connected with aliens so
take these strange head shapes and the
Nazca lines and you've got the basis for
a best-seller and quite recently
somebody claimed that they had extracted
DNA genetic material from one of these
Nazca skulls and it wasn't the same as
typical human DNA but they haven't
published the results in a reputable
journal and my advice is don't hold
your breath
the brain scoop is made possible by the
Field Museum and the Harris family
foundation
it still has brains on it