In 2004 Christina Conlee, an archaeologist at Texas State University, found a rare headless skeleton in a tomb sitting cross-legged with a ceramic "head jar" placed to the left of the body
The decapitated body was found in the Nasca region, named for the ancient civilization that thrived in southern Peru from A.D. 1 to 750.
The age and condition of both the body and the jar, which is painted with two inverted human faces, suggests that the victim was killed in a rite of ancestral worship, Conlee said.
The burial site, called La Tiza, contains only the third known Nasca head jar found with a decapitated body.
Head jars have been found at other Nasca sites and are often associated with high-status burials, though scientists know little about their function.
The archaeologist also noted that the head jar is painted with the reversible image of a human face that can be seen right-side up or upside down, suggesting that the jar might have been meant as a substitute for the victim's missing head. Full story here.
Half a world away, in China, in May, 1987 at the archaeological site at Jiahu (discovered in 1962), archaeologists opened Grave M344, and saw an adult male whose head was missing. Where his head would have been were eight sets of tortoise shells and one fork-shaped bone artifact. Full story here.
Unfortunately, I could find no further development of the Jiahu "substitute head" burial online; the 2003 article in devoted mainly to a discussion of the possibility that the Jiahu "signs" are a precursor to or possibly even proto-writing, some 5000 years before it is generally accepted that Chinese writing first appeared during the Shang period.
Tortoise shells and animal scapula have been used by diviners in China since before the Shang period, so my guess is that the "substitute head" burial using eight pairs of tortoise shells (which may have contained pebbles of various colors and shapes) was of a very important diviner whose head was retained as an oracle, much like the Druids did thousands of years later. The number eight, of course, has long been significant in Chinese divination (i.e., the I Ching).
More information was provided in the article about the 2004 Nasca "substitute head" burial, but much of it was speculation. Just not enough is known yet about the whys and wherefores of these rare burials in South America. My suggestion is that this burial, too, is of an important personage (not a sacrificed prisoner of war) whose head was kept as an oracle.
Yes, I know – these burials are half a world and thousands of years apart. But human nature has remained stubbornly static since the dawn of time despite our spreading out across the globe in the intervening millennia. Rite and ritual are as old as we are, and probably older. There is evidence, for instance, that the "not human" Neanderthals buried their dead and, in one grave of a child, someone left a small bouquet of flowers on top of the body before it was buried. Despite cultural differences that it suits some folks to play up these days, we all come into the world the same way, we all die and, in between, we are primarily concerned with pursuing our survival and satisfaction, to the best of our ability.
Oftentimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one. It makes more sense to me that these burials, strikingly alike in the use of a "substitute head," were done for the same reason – the head was taken and used as an oracle.
The decapitated body was found in the Nasca region, named for the ancient civilization that thrived in southern Peru from A.D. 1 to 750.
The age and condition of both the body and the jar, which is painted with two inverted human faces, suggests that the victim was killed in a rite of ancestral worship, Conlee said.
The burial site, called La Tiza, contains only the third known Nasca head jar found with a decapitated body.
Head jars have been found at other Nasca sites and are often associated with high-status burials, though scientists know little about their function.
The archaeologist also noted that the head jar is painted with the reversible image of a human face that can be seen right-side up or upside down, suggesting that the jar might have been meant as a substitute for the victim's missing head. Full story here.
Half a world away, in China, in May, 1987 at the archaeological site at Jiahu (discovered in 1962), archaeologists opened Grave M344, and saw an adult male whose head was missing. Where his head would have been were eight sets of tortoise shells and one fork-shaped bone artifact. Full story here.
Unfortunately, I could find no further development of the Jiahu "substitute head" burial online; the 2003 article in devoted mainly to a discussion of the possibility that the Jiahu "signs" are a precursor to or possibly even proto-writing, some 5000 years before it is generally accepted that Chinese writing first appeared during the Shang period.
Tortoise shells and animal scapula have been used by diviners in China since before the Shang period, so my guess is that the "substitute head" burial using eight pairs of tortoise shells (which may have contained pebbles of various colors and shapes) was of a very important diviner whose head was retained as an oracle, much like the Druids did thousands of years later. The number eight, of course, has long been significant in Chinese divination (i.e., the I Ching).
More information was provided in the article about the 2004 Nasca "substitute head" burial, but much of it was speculation. Just not enough is known yet about the whys and wherefores of these rare burials in South America. My suggestion is that this burial, too, is of an important personage (not a sacrificed prisoner of war) whose head was kept as an oracle.
Yes, I know – these burials are half a world and thousands of years apart. But human nature has remained stubbornly static since the dawn of time despite our spreading out across the globe in the intervening millennia. Rite and ritual are as old as we are, and probably older. There is evidence, for instance, that the "not human" Neanderthals buried their dead and, in one grave of a child, someone left a small bouquet of flowers on top of the body before it was buried. Despite cultural differences that it suits some folks to play up these days, we all come into the world the same way, we all die and, in between, we are primarily concerned with pursuing our survival and satisfaction, to the best of our ability.
Oftentimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one. It makes more sense to me that these burials, strikingly alike in the use of a "substitute head," were done for the same reason – the head was taken and used as an oracle.
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