The Order of The Good Death

Ask a Mortician Skull Mystery

The time has come to get our Nancy Drew big girl pants on, you guys. Your Mortician has been stumped. I got a letter from an Order reader, Priyaa Treu, with the following question.

“Yesterday, fumbling around while cleaning out a storage unit of my dad’s, I came across a face of a skull. My father said he acquired it when a friend who worked at a crematorium gave it to him, saying that “Bones don’t always burn up in the oven”. I am interested in the colouring of the bones. It is mostly reddish, with white and grey patches, especially on the teeth. Any reason why? A couple photos are attached.”

First of all, if I was cleaning out a storage unit and that skull was like “hi thuur” I would NOT be having it. I’m a death worker and I still wouldn’t be having it.

Second, I’ve never seen a skull looking like that after a cremation before. There are usually piles of bones (and sometimes complete skulls) after a cremation takes place. But they are incredibly fragile and don’t usually last that long before crumbling. Priyaa says that this skull is very sturdy.

Post-cremation bones are also white, and sometimes black, but never this deep reddish color, more like a mummified skull. But a worker at a crematorium (who, by the way, is apparently handing out skulls to his bro friends, way to do us proud there) likely wouldn’t have access to decomposed remains. So it has to be something in the cremation.

Any ideas, deathlings?

 

 

Posted on July 23, 2012 by caitlin
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  • Will

    The red comes from lying in damp iron-rich ground for a time?  I’d send pictures to all the CSI/Serial Killer/CutesyPoo Detective shows on TV, they’ll be able to give you definitive answers in seconds.

    • Anonymous

      Or just contact the body farm in Tennessee. http://fac.utk.edu/ 

      I’m pretty sure that’s where the CSI shows get their information. 

  • Andy

    I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I found some references to bones or bodies being painted with red ochre prior to burial (apparently in Aboriginal cultures?)

    http://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/colored-bones-varied-meanings/

    http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/methods/methods.php

  • Museum3

    Odd that it’s red on the exterior but not so on the interior, suggesting the presence of an oxide of iron that had come in contact with it and may have strengthened the calcium prior to the cremation…

  • Zenfields

    Just a thought, but I wouldn’t automatically take the dad’s friend’s backstory at face value (HA!). It’s worth considering that a guy who takes human remains and gives them to his buddies might not be the most reliable source of information. Questions to consider: Are we sure he actually worked in a crematory? Even if he did, are we sure the bone was really from a cremation and wasn’t something one of the gravediggers came across in an old part of the graveyard and handed off to him or someone else (perhaps to cremate)?

    My wild guesses: Perhaps it was from a burial in iron-rich soil, or it was purposely colored after death but before it was broken up.

  • http://twitter.com/MonroeTCharles °Monroe Charles°

    It looks like one of the skulls from those tombs that used bones & skulls to decorate. It looks like it was popped off the wall, similar to the guy on reddit who stole a full skull from one of those old tombs.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665787136 Joe Selinski

    Obviously the skull was not creamated or the septum in the nose would not be intact. I have collected animal skulls for years and usually find staining such as the red being picked up from the soil. Since bone is porous it will stain from being buried in soils that contain iron and other minerals and elements. If I were to guess this skull was taken from an Indian grave. They will take pipes and drive them into the mound and go until they hit something. I was given a bowl that had been looted and broken when the pipe hit it years ago. Since it is illegal to loot these mounds I would highly suspect that is where this came from. Caitlin, do you know what part of the country this may have been from? It’s hard to tell but are some of the breaks along the sutures?

  • Ncaciola

    Nothing to add about the origin of the skull, but this IS a fascinating little mystery! I hope your reader and you will keep us in the loop if more info becomes available.

  • http://twitter.com/DrKillgrove Kristina Killgrove

    Sooo, the person who found this skull needs to contact the police or the local anthropology department.  Laws vary state-to-state (where was this found?), but if the remains are recent (e.g., from the last 50 years) or if the remains are ancient (e.g., from Native Americans), they need to be dealt with by professionals.  You really just don’t want to be caught holding human remains without any sort of paperwork… That said, if there is paperwork saying this was a medical skull (e.g., a teaching skull), then it’s basically legit.

    Hard to tell from the pictures, but it does seem to be a real splanchnocranium (which is the awesome word for the facial part of a skull) and mandible.  The discoloration does suggest it was buried at some point rather than burned, but if the cremation was old, it’s possible, I suppose, that some crematory worker “salvaged” this.  There are teeth, which means that the DNA could be run.

    So, if the person who found this skull needs a suggestion for a local contact to deal with the skull, I’m happy to help – just email me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665787136 Joe Selinski

    It also looks like the posterior wall of the right maxillary sinus is partially there and parts of the nasal turbines. None of these would have survived cremation.

    • http://twitter.com/DrKillgrove Kristina Killgrove

      Ohhhh, that’s a good point about the nasal conchae (turbinates).  It’s just a very random breakage pattern… hard to find splanchnocrania like this.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665787136 Joe Selinski

        Kristina, it’s been a few years since A&P! I know how fragile these bones can be on other mammal skulls though. The mystery is a foot!

  • Peachcoke

    Just today I saw on our local news that a skull was found on the trash dumpster; it was thrown out by an old lady who lives in the neighbourhood. It seems her sister-in-law was a dentist and used it to study, however she passed away and the old lady didn’t want it in the house anymore. Now she’s in deep trouble. :

    • Anonymous

      Why would she be in trouble for destroying a medical study piece. A lot of things used in classrooms are very obviously medical pieces and NOT from someone you just killed. lol 

      • Peachcoke

        It’s a human skull though, source unknown — her sister-in-law, like most health students around here, probably got her ‘study piece’ from a black market dealer.

  • http://www.facebook.com/abbie.culbertson Abbie Culbertson

    Yeah, I know nothing, but you and a lot of these commenters do know quite a bit about cremation. Someone was lying about where this guy came from. Also, lol to the “hi thuur” comment.  That’s totally what it looks like it’s saying.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=677229679 Michael Sandholzer

    The brownish/red discolouration is quite possible at temperatures around 300-400C. As crematoria normally work at 800C+ this might indicate, that the a) the soft tissue protection was quite strong and b) the person might have been burned face down. One of the indicators for that would be the root of the incisor, as they are normally the first to be affected by fire- and it seems to be well protected here.

  • SC

    Shouldn’t the title of this article be: Stump the Mortecian? Or A Mortician Asks?

  • Priyaa Treu

    Thank you guys so much. I’m trying to find a good anthropologist and perhaps they could help me deal with the skull. I don’t want to get in trouble here! All your information is wonderful to read. I will let you know updates as they come. Keep posting if you find something you want to share or have an idea that might contribute to our understanding of these bones. :) Thank you, yet again.