Best Skull

The Taung Child is the fossilized skull and natural brain endocast of a juvenile Australopithecus africanus discovered at Taung, South Africa, in 1924. Raymond Dart described it in 1925, identifying a combination of ape-like cranial traits and evidence for habitual upright posture. As the first reco...

Selam is the nickname of DIK-1-1, a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered at Dikika in Ethiopia and dated to about 3.3 million years ago. The specimen preserves an unusually complete skull together with parts of the shoulders, vertebral column, ribs, pelvis, arms, and legs, making...

Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct primate known from late Miocene fossils discovered in Chad, including a distorted but relatively complete cranium nicknamed Toumai. The remains are approximately 6 to 7 million years old and combine a small braincase with reduced canine teeth and facial featur...

The Jericho Skull is a plaster reconstruction of a Neolithic human skull discovered at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho). Dating from approximately 8000 to 6000 BC, it represents an early example of portraiture in the Levant. The skull’s significance lies in its potential role within ritual practices and off...

Proconsul africanus is an extinct primate from the Early Miocene of East Africa, known particularly from fossils found on Rusinga Island in Kenya. It combined an ape-like absence of an external tail with limb and trunk features suited to movement along the tops of branches rather than the suspensory...

Homo longi is a proposed species of archaic human based on CAGS-HV-PA-01, a nearly complete skull reportedly discovered near Harbin in northeastern China. Researchers formally described the specimen in 2021 and reported that it was at least 146,000 years old. Nicknamed Dragon Man, the skull combines...

Flat-faced hominin discovered in Kenya in 1999 and dated to approximately 3.5 million years ago; its distinctive cranial morphology complicates the view of a single linear human ancestry for that period.

Andrewsarchus mongoliensis is an extinct Eocene mammal known principally from AMNH 20135, a very large skull discovered in Mongolia in 1923 during an American Museum of Natural History expedition. Because no associated skeleton is known, its body proportions, locomotion, diet, and total size remain...

The skull of Thomas Aquinas, a highly influential 13th-century scholastic philosopher and theologian, is preserved as a holy relic in the Cathedral of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, France.

Claimed to be the skull of John the Baptist, this relic is displayed in Amiens Cathedral in France, having been brought back from the Fourth Crusade in 1206.

The skull of Saint Valentine is a religious relic displayed at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, Italy. The relic features a small skull crowned with flowers, accompanied by an inscription identifying it as that of the early Christian martyr Saint Valentine. Displayed within a glass r...

Dromaeosaurid from Late Cretaceous Mongolia described in 2006, significant for a well-preserved skull that clarified the anatomy and relationships of velociraptorine dinosaurs.

The skull of Saint Thomas More is enshrined at St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury, England, traditionally believed to be the severed head of the Tudor lawyer executed in 1535.

Housed in the Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, France, this relic is revered as the skull of Mary Magdalene, discovered in 1279.

For the Love of God is Damien Hirst's 2007 platinum skull set with 8,601 diamonds, one of the costliest artworks made by a living artist.

Housed in Rome's Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, this skull is venerated as that of Saint Valentine, a 3rd-century Christian martyr.

Housed at the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, the claimed skull of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a highly controversial artifact whose true identity remains scientifically unproven.