 One of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of the year, researchers have just ignited a major debate regarding the cone as depicted in many dynastic depictions from the time of the pharaohs. Elongation of the skull was and still is a widely practiced method of cranial deformation, something that has widely been accepted as deliberate deformation despite a few cases when the skulls do not show any signs of adjoining or sagittal suture ends that seemingly show that certain people in society grew like this without any doctoral design. Now if the king or queen of the land had this feature and it was clear to the subjects of the royal ruler that this was the case then isn't it likely that the people would attempt to copy and of course this led to the process of cranial deformation because the people wanted to look like their leader and in Egypt this has caused great concern and confusion if the people were simply copying something on a massive scale then the thing they are copying from must have been real, something like that anyway. The latest discovery that relates to the ancient appearance of these people delivers a great insight into their way of thinking and indeed all across the ancient lands of Egypt we see depicted in reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions scenes of the great monuments in the life of the great rulers and occupying these scenes are beings with huge skulls unlike anything in existence today in these scenes the cone is well documented and this would probably have triggered a type of fashion frenzy to look like the royal leader would surely be a great honor and this is probably why it gained a lot of traction before eventually fading into the darkness the trend in this way probably immortalized in the strange head cone depictions nobody really knows what the strange cones represent but it is possible that these strange objects that appear in paintings and wall carvings are a representation of the cranial deformation and they have been confusing experts for years some even saying that they are a representation of a cataclysmic volcano episode some have even speculated the cones were merely symbolic until now researchers investigating the strange cone depictions have come up with a startling discovery they have physical evidence that these things were in fact very real and this throws the integrity of previous explanations into serious dispute for too many ages now the so-called experts in the positions of education have called out the ancients as mythical fantasies why would the ancient people lie would it not make more sense that they were actually depicting things that did happen rather than making it all up archaeologists made the discoveries at armarna one of the ancient egypt's most unusual cities the site was occupied for more than about 15 years during the 14th century bc while egypt was under the rule of the pharaoh who gave the location its name Akhenaten he developed a short-lived religious system focused on the worship of a single god represented by the sun and this king fathered to in common the team could find no chemical evidence from the well-preserved grave that the headcone had melted and dripped onto the occupants hair and this totally undermines the leading hypothesis about the cones that they were perfumed lumps of ungwent that slowly melted in the sun to perfume and cleanse the body both literally and spiritually the idea is that by melting and cleansing the hair the cones might have richly purified the individual placing them in an appropriate state to participate in rituals but in this new grave site that confirms the existence of the cones no such connections can be made reporting in the journal antiquity a team led by anna steven of australia's monash university unearthed two real-life head cones and graves at the archaeological site of armarna in egypt head cones it appears did exist and at least in some cases they joined their wearers in death speaking about the recent discovery carina roge a conservation scientist from the museum of fine arts houston and an authority on the study said it was very satisfying to finally be able to say that the head cones are real an amazing discovery that has been archaeologically confirmed dr carina's colleagues found the first cream colored headcone in 2010 while excavating a grave the second emerged in 2015 from a jumbled up skeleton in a grave that had been ravaged by tomb robbers both graves belong to people who were not elites and the first belong to a woman the cones were hollow measured about three inches tall and just under four inches wide and were made of wax presumably beeswax because the head cones were found within graves the team said the findings provided insight into their funerary roles the obvious suggestion here is that they helped the deceased to be reborn into the afterlife or brought them benefit once there said anna stevens and archaeologists from monash university in melbourne australia and lead author of the study but this doesn't mean that they always served this purpose they may have had multiple roles some archaeologists have argued that the main role of the cones which have been featured on tomb walls from the 18th dynasty around 1550 bc through the time of cleopatra was to act as perfumed ungwants under the intense egyptian heat the scented wax cone would melt into the wearer's hair or wig providing a sweet aroma to the wearer so far the team's findings do not confirm that interpretation and alas hieroglyphics are not easily decipherable they couldn't detect any trace of perfume in these cones but that doesn't indicate that perfume wasn't once present in these cones or others wouldn't you want a fresh cone for your burial as opposed to one you had already used the interpretation has arisen partly from depictions of anointing rituals using oils and perfumes sometimes in scenes that also show cones being worn and partly from observations of how some modern african groups apply animal fat to their hair a few scenes show apparent ungwant cones on stands or in bowls including during production or the process of being placed on the head ungwants were generally thought to purify the ancient egyptian wearer placing them in an elevated state of being when in the company of a divinity or death as the justified deceased scholars often link the cone specifically with sensuality sexuality and related notions as they are frequently associated in imagery with women sometimes unclogged the cones also appear in banquet scenes and other contexts that involve divinities such as the fertility goddess hathor in tomb scenes they are often read as sensual motifs associated with the rebirth of the tomb owner who is usually male they have also been interpreted more broadly as symbols of the tomb owner's contentedness his status as a justified spirit in the afterlife it is suggested that the cone sometimes represent the ba after it had received divine offering the ba formed a person's vital power and was especially important after death when it could move from the grave and interact with the living it was proposed of the purpose that when shown to living individuals the cone indicates the active state of their ba which allowed them to interact more effectively with divine figures in the absence of any convincing examples of head cones from archaeological context scholars have questioned whether the cones were ever produced as three dimensional objects or were instead entirely symbolic of anointing or beautification rituals or of more abstract ideas however the recent fieldwork at the location of the late second millennium bc city of amarna interestingly has now identified two cones from non-elite graves diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectostropy indicates that their primary component is most probably a biological wax these finds confirm that the head cones exist in a three dimensional form and provide two important examples of their real life use during the time of the dynastic Egyptians it is conceivable that the two cones were model versions made for a burial environment and that cones intended to be worn by the living could have been constructed differently there is no reason to assume however that hollow or perhaps textile lined stuff cones of wax were not also worn in life even if scented they may not have been intended to melt in mass and moisturize serving more to mark the wearer as someone who was in a purified protected or otherwise special state but what do you guys think about the confirmation that dynastic Egyptian cones for purposes of wearing on the head were in fact real what do you guys think they were for comments below and as always thank you for watching