Returning from battle, according to ancient accounts, Gallic warriors displayed the severed heads of their fallen enemies around their horses’ necks for all to see, as they returned victorious to their tribes. Not only has new research confirmed this, but it has also proven that the Gallic warlords also ‘embalmed’ their enemies harvested heads.
The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples who inhabited West-Central Europe (Gaul) from the Iron Age through the Roman period, at which time the people were culturally assimilated into the Roman Empire and their tribal identities had been all but lost by the end of the 1st century AD. Experts working at the iron age settlement of Le Cailar in the south of France “have found traces of conifer resins on the remains of skulls” which backs up ancient reports that the Celtic Gauls preserved their cranial trophies.
Why were the heads embalmed?
While this latest research focuses on the embalming skills of a 2000-year-old culture, Ancient Egyptians are perhaps the most famous ancient embalmers who had developed advanced preservation processes as early as the First Dynasty (3200 BC). But even they were late out of the gates for the ancient origins of embalming human bodies belongs to the Chinchorro culture in the Atacama desert of present-day Chile and Peru who performed artificial mummification as early as 5000-6000 BC.