Lesson plan
Macrocephali
The Macrocephali ( ; "long-headed people") were ancient tribes living near the Black Sea who performed artificial cranial deformation. Pliny the Elder, Pomponius Mela, Scylax, and Hippocrates all mention a people specifically by this name living northeast of Pontus. While other writers, such as Strabo and the author of the Periplus of the Euxine Sea, identify the Macrocephali with the Macrones, Pliny clearly considers them separate groups. The Macrocephali were also treated as a mythical species on the same level as the Cynocephaly, Pygmies, and Skiapodes. In book 3 of Philostratus's Life of Apollonius, an Indian monk named Iarchas refutes the existence of all such creatures found in the books of Scylax besides the Pygmies. Dr. Heinrich Rathke writes about elongated skulls being found in northern Caucasus during the early 1800s which he attributes to the Macrocephali. Indentations in the bone show that the skulls had been bound by clothes to change the shape. A drawing of such skulls was also on display at a museum in Kerch as of 1842. Their cultural practice of artificially elongating the skulls of their children is mentioned in part 14 of Hippocrates' On Air, Water, and Places. It is described how, soon after birth while a child's head is still soft, it would be bound to increase its length.…
Article summary
The Macrocephali ( ; "long-headed people") were ancient tribes living near the Black Sea who performed artificial cranial deformation. Pliny the Elder, Pomponius Mela, Scylax, and Hippocrates all mention a people specifically by this name living northeast of Pontus. While other writers, such as Strabo and the author of the Periplus of the Euxine Sea, identify the Macrocephali with the Macrones, Pliny clearly considers them separate groups. The Macrocephali were also treated as a mythical species on the same level as the Cynocephaly, Pygmies, and Skiapodes. In book 3 of Philostratus's Life of Apollonius, an Indian monk named Iarchas refutes the existence of all such creatures found in the books of Scylax besides the Pygmies. Dr. Heinrich Rathke writes about elongated skulls being found in northern Caucasus during the early 1800s which he attributes to the Macrocephali. Indentations in the bone show that the skulls had been bound by clothes to change the shape. A drawing of such skulls was also on display at a museum in Kerch as of 1842. Their cultural practice of artificially elongating the skulls of their children is mentioned in part 14 of Hippocrates' On Air, Water, and Places. It is described how, soon after birth while a child's head is still soft, it would be bound to increase its length.…
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.