Tower skull from Mannersdorf

There are numerous finds of artificially deformed skulls from the 5th century AD. This skull is attributed to an Alamannin (Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart)

The parts of the tower skull of Mannersdorf (from Mannersdorf am Leithagebirge ) in ( Lower Austria ) were found in 2003 in a sand pit in the district of Sandberg. Because of their unusual shape, they were presented to the Natural History Museum Vienna .

Scientific analysis revealed that the artificially deformed skull belongs to a 25 to 35-year-old man who lived around the mid- 5th century AD. The associated bones showed no abnormal changes. Only on the skull are the frontal bones and parietal bones badly deformed, resulting in an extremely elongated, receding forehead.

The affiliation to a certain ethnic group could not be determined as no additions were found. Such skull deformations were common among the Huns , however. It could be the sign of belonging to a clan or class, or an ideal of beauty. The deformation was initiated on the still soft head of the toddler by means of bandages or cords and boards and continued until ossification.

Graves from the time of the Great Migration were recovered at the site in 1937 . This skeletal material was lost during the Second World War , so that it could not be used for comparison. Other graves found from time to time belong to different epochs. Of the 18 deformed skulls found in Austria , 14 were found east of a line running through Vienna. Three were found in the Krems-Land district on the Danube and one skull comes from the Völkermarkt district in Carinthia . The Mannersdorfer skull is one of the most deformed. The skull of a woman between the ages of 18 and 20, who lived between AD 435 and 470 and was recovered in 1985 in the Avar burial ground of Sommerein (also in the Leithagebirge) showed similar deformations.

literature

• Karin Wiltschke-Schrotta: Manipulated Bodies - Thoughts on Artificial Skull Deformation . In: Communications from the Anthropological Society in Vienna 2004/2005 . tape 134/135 , 2005.

See also

• Skull manipulation among indigenous peoples of Latin America
• Tower skull
• Skull deformation
• Women's grave from Oßmannstedt

Web links

• Description and photographs of the find ( memento from June 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 48 ° 0 ′ 23.6 "  N , 16 ° 34 ′ 57.1"  E