BRASILIA, BRAZIL—Live Science reports that graphics expert Cícero Moraes and his colleagues have created a digital reconstruction of the so-called Jericho Skull, one of seven 9,000-year-old skulls found in the West Bank in 1953 by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon. Now held at the British Museum, this skull, at first thought to have belonged to a woman, was packed with earth and encased in plaster with cowrie shells for eyes. Some of the Jericho skulls also bore traces of brown paint. Now believed to have belonged to a man, Moraes’ reconstruction of the skull is based upon published measurements taken during a 2016 micro-computed tomography scan and statistical projections derived from the CT scans of thousands of living people. The resulting image depicts a dark-haired man between the ages of 30 and 40. The study also suggests that his cranium was larger than average, and may have been elongated when the individual was young, Moraes said. Read the original scholarly article about this research in OrtogOnline. To read about a previous reconstruction of a Jericho skull, go to "Neolithic FaceTime."
