File:Guide leaflet (1901) (14785874853).jpg

Identifier: scienceguide1630amer (find matches)
Title: Guide leaflet
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: American Museum of Natural History Natural history
Publisher: New York : The Museum
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: IMLS / LSTA / METRO

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
h this guide relates chiefly to burials, it may not be out of place to call attention to some peculiarities of Peruvian skulls. The skulls of all races are of great scientific value, but those of Peru are of particular interest, because many of them bear the marks of surgical or sacrificial operations. The Museum collection of Peruvian P .. skulls is so extensive that only a representative series is on exhibition. This contains many examples showing trephining, artificial deformation and pathological conditions, together with several normal Peruvian skulls for purposes of comparison. In Peru, where stones from slings and wooden clubs with heads of stone and copper were the common offensive weapons, complex fractures of the skull with depression of its bony plates must have been common.There seems no reason to doubt that trephining was resorted to as a means of relief in such fractures, and that sometimes cures were effected by this treatment. It is also probable that the operation in many
Text Appearing After Image:
MEAD, PERUVIAN MUMMIES 23 cases was a part of some religious ceremonial, since some of the trephined skulls in the collection show distinct orientation of the wound and present no indication of lesion. Implements of copper and bronze and knives of stone and obsidian must have been employed in the operation, which was performed with skill. Artificial deformation of the head was extensively practised in ancient Peru and was accomplished by means of ligatures applied in infancy. The form taken by the head was determined by the manner in which these bindings were applied. The pathological skulls show the ravages of disease in the hones of the cranium. THE QUIPU. The Quipu is a fringe consisting of a main cord with other cords of various colors hanging from it. In the fringe knots of different kinds were tied. The ancient Peruvians, having no written language, made use of the quipu to keep their accounts and possibly to record historic incidents. By the color of the cord, the kind of knot, the dis

Note About Images