Across the globe, people indulge in all sorts of body modification—tattoos, piercings, scarification—and they usually have a say while they’re alive. Yet, after death, many ancient societies took a very different route, altering the dead for ritual, symbolic, or practical ends. These ten ancient practices reveal how the deceased were transformed long after their last breath.
10 Ancient Practices Explored
10. Skull Cups
Skull cups have been fashioned by countless cultures across many eras. The process involves extracting a cranium and carving it into a functional drinking vessel, typically focusing on the calvaria—the top portion of the skull. Decorative engravings are sometimes added for flair. The oldest known examples are a trio from Gough’s Cave in Somerset, England, dated to about 14,700 years ago, discovered alongside other human remains that appear to have been cracked open to harvest marrow.
Additional modified skulls that may have served as cups have surfaced in Nawinpukio, Peru (AD 400–700), and from the Bronze Age in El Mirador Cave, Spain. Systematic production of skull cups emerged during the Neolithic at Herxheim, Germany, while earlier examples appear from the Upper Paleolithic in Le Placard Cave, France. Vikings and Scythians are reported to have used defeated foes’ crania as cups, either to harness the dead’s power or to flaunt dominance. Historical accounts also note the Aghori of India and various Aboriginal groups in Australia, Fiji, and Oceania employing skulls as drinking tools.
Tibetan skull cups, called kapalas, were employed by Buddhists and Zoroastrians practicing sky burials—exposing bodies to birds, then pouring wine into the skull before offering it to the gods. Kapalas still appear on the market today, though their trade is heavily contested and banned in many jurisdictions.
9. Bones As Tools
In the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, a pre‑Aztec community fashioned a plethora of everyday objects—buttons, combs, needles, spatulas—from freshly deceased human bones between AD 200 and 400. They worked with femurs, tibiae, and skulls, using stone implements to strip flesh and shape the tools, a process that had to begin shortly after death before the bones grew too brittle. All discovered tools derive from local young adults; none were fashioned from foreigners, children, or the elderly.
A Neanderthal femur, at least 50,000 years old, was also repurposed as a tool, found alongside other Neanderthal remains near the Voultron River in France and used to sharpen stone implements.
8. Bones As Jewelry
Human bones have long been transformed into ornaments. Around 3500 BC in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, cranial bones were fashioned into oval amulets with a drilled hole. Similar pendants have been uncovered in Port‑Conty, La Lance, and Concise, all within Switzerland. In Mexico and across the Plains and Great Basin of the United States, necklaces crafted from hand and foot bones have been found; these were either strung as long chains or used as pendants, likely created from slain enemies to symbolize victory.
7. Bones As Musical Instruments
The Aztecs produced an instrument known as an omichicahuaztli from human leg or arm bones, creating a percussion device marked with notches. These bone instruments appear at archaeological sites throughout the empire, though occasionally animal bones—like turtle scapulae or whale ribs—served the same purpose.
Tibetan Buddhists employed a trumpet‑like instrument called a kangling, crafted from a human femur. Used in Tantric and funerary rites, it reminded participants of the body’s transience. The bone was preferably taken from a criminal or someone who suffered a violent death; if unavailable, a teacher’s femur could be used. Originating in India 1,500 years ago, the kangling spread to Tibet around AD 800.
6. Ritual Corpse Mutilation
In Brazil’s Lapa do Santo cave, some of the New World’s oldest skeletons have been uncovered. Humans inhabited the site for roughly 12,000 years, initially burying the dead intact. Between 9,600 and 9,400 years ago, funerary customs shifted dramatically: corpses were systematically mutilated. Teeth were extracted post‑mortem, bodies were dismembered and de‑fleshed, and evidence points to burning or cannibalism, with some bones later placed inside another individual’s cranium. No other burial goods appear from this period, suggesting the mutilation itself was the primary ritual practice.
5. Ritual Decapitation
Removing a head after death has been a global method of showcasing power and triumph over foes. One Lapa do Santo skeleton shows a post‑mortem decapitation achieved by twisting and pulling the head off the neck; the head was interred separately, with the hands placed over the face—one palm up, the other down.
In Dorset, England, a mass grave containing 54 Scandinavian Vikings dated between AD 910 and 1030 revealed a similar practice. All were young males with no battle wounds. Their bodies were buried together, while 51 skulls lay in a separate pile, having been crudely chopped off shortly after death. Three heads remain missing, possibly belonging to high‑status individuals whose heads were displayed elsewhere to prove defeat.
4. Head Shrinking
The Jivaro peoples of the Amazon jungle in southern Ecuador and northern Peru practiced head shrinking—creating tsantsas from enemies’ heads. This ritual served three purposes: preventing the victim’s vengeful spirit from escaping, displaying tribal strength, and proving to ancestors that revenge had been exacted.
To shrink a head, the victim was decapitated immediately after death. The skin was peeled away, then the scalp underwent a week‑long boiling process at a precise temperature, after which the eyelids were sewn shut, wooden pegs kept the mouth closed, hot stones and sand filled the interior, and charcoal was rubbed over it. Once completed, the shrunken head was worn as a necklace, often discarded after being shown off. Western collectors later commodified the practice until the 1930s, when the sale of shrunken heads was banned.
3. Vampire Treatments
Fears of vampires prompted various post‑mortem treatments to ensure the dead stayed dead. In 16th‑century Venice, a brick was forced into a plague victim’s mouth, often breaking teeth, before burial. Other European sites reveal bodies pierced with iron stakes—two 800‑year‑old corpses from Sozopol, Bulgaria, had large iron rods driven through their chests. A 700‑year‑old Bulgarian male also bore a chest stake and had his teeth extracted post‑mortem.
Polish burials show similar anti‑vampire measures: a rock and a sickle placed across the necks of two middle‑aged women, and a male and female decapitated and interred on their sides. These practices aimed to prevent the deceased from rising as blood‑thirsty specters.
2. Mellified Men
Unlike the other entries, mellification began before death. In 12th‑century Arabia, some men who sensed their end approached began subsisting solely on pure honey, even bathing in it. This self‑induced honey diet eventually killed them; their bodies were then placed in stone coffins filled with additional honey. Centuries later, these honey‑preserved corpses were retrieved, broken into pieces, and sold as medicinal candy at bazaars.
Chinese traveler Li Shizhen described the practice in his 16th‑century compendium Bencao Gangmu. While scholars debate its historicity, honey‑preserved remains have been found: a 4,300‑year‑old Georgian mummy, accounts of Alexander the Great’s honey‑coffin, and Herodotus’s note on Assyrian honey embalming.
1. Possible Cannibalism
Although not a deliberate body‑modification, cannibalism leaves unmistakable marks on skeletal remains. At El Sidrón, Spain, 12 Neanderthal skeletons—about 49,000 years old—show evidence of cannibalism: long bones were cracked open to extract marrow, and cut marks suggest de‑fleshing and disarticulation.
Researchers have also identified gnaw marks on human bones: 12,000‑year‑old remains from Gough’s Cave, England, and even 800,000‑year‑old Homo antecessor bones from Gran Dolina, Spain. These findings indicate that cannibalistic behavior spanned multiple hominin species.