Barry 
For readers who enjoy the broader archaeological context, I’ve written a short companion piece on Substack about why Jericho is an archaeologist’s paradise. You’ll find it below if you’d like to explore the broader story after checking out the bizarre nature of the plastered skulls of Jericho.
Walking into a Neolithic house in Jericho 9000 years ago would have been a different experience. Aside from the earth floor and a relatively basic dwelling, you would have noticed something else standing out. A human skull.
But this is not just any human skull. This one may have been your mother, a grandfather, or an even older ancestor. And there’s more. It has shell eyes, and its face is covered in plaster. The skull is then passed around in veneration, its shell eyes staring back at you.
This is the plastered skulls of Jericho.
The City of Jericho
Jericho, one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world, was already a well-established settlement by around 7000 BCE. Inside its tightly built mud-brick houses, the Neolithic inhabitants created an extraordinary and unsettling tradition: plastering and decorating human skulls. These skulls were not found scattered at random.
They were buried beneath house floors in small groups, deliberately placed and covered, suggesting a ritual or domestic function bound to family life.
Unearthed in the 1950s: Kenyon’s Shocking Discovery
Archaeologists unearthed the first of these skulls in the early 1950s during the excavations led by Kathleen Kenyon. Beneath the floors of several dwellings, they discovered caches of human skulls with the faces meticulously reconstructed in plaster. Nothing like this had ever been found before. It was the type of discovery archaeologists can often only dream of, even though it is unsettling to dig down only to have a skull with shell eyes looking back up at you.
How Were the Plastered Skulls of Jericho Made?
The process was grisly. First, the flesh was removed from the skull after death. We are not sure if the skulls were left to rot, or if they underwent a deliberate defleshing process. However, we do know the jaw was removed soon after death, making it more likely they carried out the entire process quite quickly.
Then a thick layer of plaster was applied to recreate human features: cheeks, noses, lips, and even the curve of the jaw. Shells were inserted into the eye sockets, giving each face a blank, eternal gaze. The result was a mask of the dead, both haunting and oddly tender.
For all their stillness now, the plastered skulls show clear signs of being touched and moved. The plaster surfaces are worn in places, as if they had been handled repeatedly. That in itself changes the possible reasons for their very existence.
Handled by the Living: Signs of Ritual Use
What was clear was that some skulls had the plaster replaced long after that initial layer. That must mean they were reused, or even reintegrated into rituals over time. These were not some static pieces that sat in a shrine. They were involved in rituals and in domestic life. Almost as if they were continually loved and spoken to.
The exact purpose remains uncertain, but the prevailing interpretation is that they were connected to ancestor veneration — a physical link between the living and the dead.
Jericho’s plastered skulls were not unique to the city; it holds some of the earliest and most elaborate examples. Their discovery reshaped our understanding of Pre-Pottery Neolithic societies.
Jericho: One of the World’s Oldest Cities
The thing about Jericho’s population is that it was no longer a basic farming community. This population had developed various rituals to explain their world, which were woven into the very fabric of their daily lives. Uncovering these skulls and their adornments gives insight into the beliefs of ancestors existing among the living. It reminded them of heritage, lineage, and a reverence for those who came before them, even simply allowing them to be present at that moment.
Today, the skulls remain among the most iconic artefacts of Neolithic archaeology. Some are kept in the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman, preserved under controlled conditions. Others have been displayed internationally on loan, but their movement is rare due to their fragility. They are not hidden away; they are simply too precious and too ancient to be handled as freely as they once were.
As Usual, Archaeologists Ask ‘Why?’
Archaeologists continue to examine these skulls decades after their discovery, and they still struggle to come up with a definitive explanation. Were they protective? Commemorative? A way of holding the dead close in a world where survival depended on family bonds? No single interpretation has been universally accepted, but all agree on one thing: these faces represent some of the earliest attempts to preserve the human image after death.
Maybe that is why these skulls are so disturbing to us? They are not relics crafted out of nothing. This is the actual skull of someone who once lived, shaped by those who knew them. They then kept them in their homes to maintain their presence and to ensure they could be reached.
It’s bizarre to us, but 9000 years ago in Jericho, it made complete sense.
Want to Learn More About Jericho?
Ancient Jericho is a dream for archaeologists. It’s filled with history and archaeology, so if you want to learn more about Jericho, then check out our Substack post.
