The plastered Jericho skull

What you see

What you see

According to the record's description, this is "a human cranium with a face modelled in plaster". One eye is made from a bivalve shell divided in two; the other has one smaller, complete shell in place and is missing its twin. It measures 17 cm high, 14.6 cm wide and 18 cm deep, and weighs 3.4 kg. This page has no photograph: the site does not show images of human remains, and the museum record states no licence for its images either. Source 1.

What the record says

Museum number 127414, registration number 1954,0215.1. The record's object types are "human skeletal remains" and "religious/ritual equipment"; the materials are human bone, plaster and shell. Findspot: Jericho, excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in 1953. The record gives two production dates, "8500BC-6000BC" and "8200BC-7500BC (Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B)", and the culture/period field reads "Pre-Pottery Neolithic B". The museum purchased it from the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Source 1.

What can and cannot be said

The curator's comment states that headless skeletons have been found in burials of this period and that "it is probable" that removing the skulls for such use had some religious purpose, "perhaps connected with an ancestor cult". That is the wording of a hypothesis, and the record itself marks it as such. It does not say who the person was, who modelled the face or how the skull was used. The Met's timeline mentions plastered skulls in general terms, "with cowrie shells set into the eye sockets", while the record of this skull describes a bivalve shell; a general description of a group does not replace the record of a single object. Sources 1, 2.

Placement on the timeline

Both date ranges in the record lie entirely within the site's Levant Neolithic page (about 10,000-5500 BCE), so the skull is placed on that page by date range. For ordering on the timeline the wider range, 8500-6000 BCE, is used, since it contains the narrower one; the site does not choose between them. "Pre-Pottery Neolithic B" is a phase within the Neolithic, and the site has no separate page for that phase. Source 1.

Where it is now

Held by the British Museum, number 127414. On 24 October 2026 the record stated that it is on display in Room 59 (Ancient Levant), Display Case 1. The record's exhibition history includes the exhibition "Human Image" at Caixa Forum venues in 2021-2023, the last of them in Barcelona, 4 July to 22 October 2023. "On display" in a record is not a promise for a visit. The site's article on human remains in museums explains how a written policy of the British Museum treats the display of remains. Source 1.