350-year-old mummified head from Bolivia isn't what it seems

A brownish mummified head lies on its side on a table.

The mummified head from Bolivia has been in a Swiss museum collection since 1914. (Image credit: Abegg et al. 2025, Int. J. Osteoarchaeol.; CC BY 4.0)

An unusual mummified head discovered in Bolivia more than a century ago isn't what it seems, a new study finds.

Originally thought to be the remains of an Inca man, the mummified head is actually from someone from a different culture who had incisions cut into their skull, possibly as part of a ritual, the research reveals.

The new analysis is an attempt to place the individual in their archaeological context and to "give them back their local history," according to the researchers.

"These remains are not just bones in an anthropological collection," museologist and art historian Claire Brizon of the Cantonal Museum of Archaeology and History in Lausanne, Switzerland, told Live Science. "They are the remains of individuals in their own right."

Brizon is the senior author of the new study, published Aug. 27 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, that analyzed the mummified head. It consists of its mummified skin, face, cranium, jaw and part of the neck. Remarkably, the top of the head is roughly conical and bears a prominent lesion from an attempted trepanation — the process of drilling or cutting a hole through the bone of the cranium.

But there are no signs that the trepanation was done in response to trauma, which suggests it might have had a ritual or social purpose, the researchers wrote in the study.

Image 1 of 2

four different detailed angles of the mummified skull — (Image credit: Abegg et al. 2025, Int. J. Osteoarchaeol.; CC BY 4.0)

This composite photograph of the head shows (A) the face; (B) inside the neck, where it seems torn-off rather than cut; (C) a close-up of the head near its right eye, and (D) "pock marks" on the right cheek, possibly caused by insect damage.

Collected in Bolivia

The new analysis determined that the head was from an adult man who died at least 350 years ago and that he had undergone "cranial deformation" as a child — a relatively common practice in pre-Colombian South America that was achieved by tightly binding an infant's head for many years.

In addition, the trepanation attempt on the top-right side of his skull was not completed, for some reason; deep incisions were made in the outer layers of the bone, but it had not perforated the inner layers, the researchers wrote.

The study also includes research into how the mummified head was obtained by the museum and where it came from. The researchers found that the skull was donated to the museum in Lausanne in 1914 by a Swiss collector, who had obtained it in Bolivia in the 1870s.

A note attached to the head said it was from an Inca person. However, the researchers found that the type of cranial deformation indicated it was from one of the Aymara, an Indigenous group living in the Bolivian Highlands.

The note also said the head was recovered in a particular area of Bolivia, which is now known to be where the Aymara live. According to the new study, it was probably taken from a "chullpa" — a stone burial tower that was once common in that region — and it had likely been naturally mummified by the cold and dry climate there.

two people stand next to a small stone tower on a a dry grassy hill — An example of a pre-Incan funerary tower known as chullpa. The above chullpa, which sits on the hills near Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian Andes, was restored and erected with financial support from Switzerland in coordination with the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures. (Image credit: AIZAR RALDES via Getty Images)

Preserving human remains

In keeping with their mission, the researchers were careful to use only noninvasive methods of analysis — as opposed to radiocarbon dating, for example, which often requires cutting, scraping or drilling a small hole in an object to obtain enough material for a sample.

Because the dead man could give no consent, it was important to use analytical methods in line with what he might have wanted, study lead author Claudine Abegg, an anthropologist at the University of Geneva, told Live Science.

In addition, destructive testing such as isotopic or DNA analysis might be able to give more precise results than the methods used in the study, "but that decision should rest with communities connected to him," she said.

For now, the mummified head is still in the museum collection, although it is not on public display. Brizon said the museum had not yet received any requests for its repatriation but was open to inquiries.