Repository of the spirit: The history of trepanation in different cultures

In 1897, a French military doctor stole a very valuable artifact from the village of Taberga. It was a human skull on which healers of the Berber tribe demonstrated their skills in trepanation during professional initiation from generation to generation. From the perspective of modern scientific ethics, this act appears poorly, although it has brought to light the complex skills and rituals in traditional culture that have deep historical roots. Human culture has been full of mysteries and enigmas since ancient times, not all of which have been uncovered. Yet it is fascinating to look at the history of our ancestors through… a hole in the head. Trepanation was part of complex burial rites, trepanned skulls were made into masks, and some tribes kept the heads of slain enemies in their own homes! Why are folk healers still in demand in society today? How successful were operations on the skull vault in the Stone Age? Were antiseptics already invented in the ancient world? And why did trepanation, the earliest surgical operation in human history, hold significant importance in the lives of our ancestors? These and many other questions will be answered in the book by Doctor of Historical Sciences Maria Mednikova, Repository of the spirit: The history of trepanation in different cultures.