Unusual (1/2). For centuries, Toulouse has been the city of elongated skulls: here’s why
Through Laurent Derne
Published on
UN receding front. UN stretched skull. And the diffuse feeling that it could be topped with a tray lined with glasses filled to the brim, without the latter ever wavering. For several centuries, the physiognomy of the inhabitants of the City has struck with curiosity the passing visitor. At first glance, there is no possible doubt: on is at Toulouse !
A legacy of the Tectosages?
In 1871, a scientist depicted the characteristics and consequences of this “Toulouse deformation” which resurfaces thanks to a recently published book*. An ancestral custom wanted indeed that one model the skull of newborns to give them that characteristic look. The most emblematic tradition of its kind in France continued in Toulouse until the First World War.
Late 19th centurye therefore, Paul Broca offers to the Paris Anthropology Society UN head casting and woman’s brain died at the age of 74, at the Pitié hospital.
He describes to his colleagues what an untrained eye would have cataloged as a deformity. “The Toulouse deformation, of which I present to you one of the best characterized examples, was delivered in the country of Toulouse (…) three or four centuries BC, by the Volques Tectosages”, he analyzes. Paternity evoked nowadays.
Babies with compressed skulls
The three headdress parts – “crush, headband, headband” – which infants are given at birth shape their future physiognomy. “This deformity is generally less pronounced in men than in women.” Subject to the laws of their sex, the latter wore the headdress all their life, against “three-four years maximum for boys”. He continues his description:
“The forehead rises vertically to about 4 or 5 centimeters above the eyebrows; then inclines abruptly, forming a flat surface which rises obliquely to the top of the head (…). The entire frontal compartment of the skull is thus reduced, while the posterior half of the head lengthens more or less”
“Men and women go face to face with the wind”
He too is a member of the Anthropology Society – and regional of the stage for having uttered his first cry in the Gers -, Fernand Delisle described in turn, late nineteenthea stroll through the streets of Toulouse.
“We see men and women going, so to speak, nose to the wind, the chin thrown forward and lowering the posterior region of the head, the weight of which seems to outweigh that of the face”.
Under the pen of the Gascon, the Toulousain of the time appears as a to be undershot that son back weighted skull threatens to fall into somersault mode. We are far from the perfect proportions of Vitruvian manthe famous drawing of Leonardo da Vinci!
The lead sarcophagus reveals an astonishing secret
closer to us, two sarcophagi were extracted from the bowels of Notre-Dame de Paris to be analyzed by the specialists ofRangueil IML (Forensic Institute), in November 2022. One of them revealed similar signs on the anonymous subject it contained.
Fashioned in lead, the anthropomorphic coffin was exhumed from archaeological layers includes between the XIVe and the XVIIe century. the knight in his thirties who rested there – he believed – for eternity has the famous “Toulouse deformation of the skull”, as Eric Crubézyscientific expert at Paul-Sabatier University, recently revealed it to Toulouse news.
Aesthetic concerns? Cultural heritage?
But why did the inhabitants of the Pink City – from the common people, to the Capitouls – deform the heads of infants? Through aesthetic concern? Fancy ? Cultural heritage?
“Always made in the countryside”
In August 1871, Paul Broca predicted the programmed decay of the Toulouse deformation. “The efforts of doctors who have fought the popular routine have already produced excellent effects. In the city of Toulouse, deformities of the skull have now become quite rare in individuals under the age of forty; but they are still operated in the countryside, and it will no doubt still be several generations before this last vestige of the mores of the ancient Tectosages has entirely disappeared”. A century and a half later, the prophecy has come true.
Why was this practice so rooted in Toulouse? What consequences for the brain babies ? What remains today of this custom shared by many human societies across the globe?
A specialist answers our questions
Maxillofacial surgeon to the hospital Necker-Sick children (Assistance publique-Hospitals of Paris) and author of the recent book on the subject, Professor Roman Hossein Khonsari explores for us this practice forgotten for a century.
An interview to be found this Sunday, January 8, 2022, in our second part.
Release. The Toulouse Skull, history of the intentional deformation of the heads of newborns in France (Editions Hermann), by Roman Hossein Khonsari190 pages, 25 euros.
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