Skull Facts

The skull or cranium is the hard, bone case that contains and protects your brain.
The skull looks as though it is a single bone. In fact, it is made up of 22 separate bones, cemented together along rigid joints called sutures.
The dome on top is called the cranial vault and it is made from eight curved pieces of bone fused (joined) together.
As well as the sinuses of the nose; the skull has four large cavities — the cranial cavity for the brain, the nasal cavity (the nose) and two orbits for the eyes.
There are holes in the skull to allow blood vessels and nerves through, including the optic nerves to the eyes and the olfactory tracts to the nose.
The biggest hole is in the base. It is called the foramen magnum, and the brain stem goes through it to meet the spinal cord.
In the 19th century, people called phrenologists thought they could work out people’s characters from little bumps on their skulls.
Archaeologists can reconstruct faces from the past using computer analysis of ancient skulls.

This entry is filed under Interesting Facts.