I think there's a skull in my garden wall

[anotheruser75]

As the title says really! It's a garden wall at the front of our house, we've just started doing some work and a bit of wall came off to reveal what looks like a jaw bone, although I could be completely wrong. If it is, I'm sure it's an animals but it begs the question why would an animal skull be inside our wall?

@CircesLion

All in all, it's probably just another cat in the wall.

Excellent, @CircesLion

Dome kind of folklore thing?

It's flint. Looks nothing like a skull.

I can't see a skull at all. It looks like a bit of tree to me.

It looks like normal flint pebbles being used as infill to me. Flint naturally has that bone coloured coating to it.

Convinced it’s just flint.

Need more pictures and more archeology type gentle moving the wall around it!

That looks very much like a piece of old dead tree root to me.

@knittingaddict

It's flint. Looks nothing like a skull.

this although in sussex, flints from chalk sometimes look like ugly heads and are called "calkins" which means children of the chalk

Flint.

Looks like root to me, maybe they once had ivy or a trailing plant over the wall? We had some fierce ivy roots when we cut it down from over our garage wall.

Looks more like a pelvis.

It's 100% flint. I can't work out how to post an image on here, but Google it if you don't believe me.

What’s the plan op? Are you going to chisel it out of the wall to have a look?

I think it looks v woody. Can you chip a bit off to examine it further?

Here's a closer look. I've felt it and there is some give in it I.e not rock hard

@BoodleBug51

Looks like root to me, maybe they once had ivy or a trailing plant over the wall? We had some fierce ivy roots when we cut it down from over our garage wall.

I'm starting to think this is most likely but it's right at the top of the wall, not sure why there would be a random tree root at the top of a wall

That’s not bone

@stripeyflowers

Holy Cripes!

Cripes, now there's a apt exclamation, I'm going to incorporate that into all my outbursts from now on.

Nothing to do with the thread, just admiring your vocal

Of all the things that it doesn't look like, bone (and specifically a skull) is right up there.

I'm not sure it's a skull or even bone but depending where you are there may be local archaeologists groups/departments or musuem people who if asked very nicely might take a look for you - though that might mean taking in a sample to them - though if you take the wall down more it might be clearer what it is anyway.

@BestIsWest

We need Dr Ruth Galloway.

That was my first thought too!

I think it's tree root but I can't tell TBH. I've dug up a lot of bones in my garden, none human (AFAIK! ) but an awful lot of dog/sheep jaws and every single time, even though I know now what they are, they give me a shock.

There's currently a very beautiful, delicate skull belonging to some kind of corvid residing in one of my flowerbeds. I noticed in a few months ago and didn't want to move it in case it was still stinky, and I've got used to it being there now.

Oh, and people used to bury babies, as well as cats, in walls/under thresholds. Often with quite a lot of care, suggesting it wasn't to hide them or anything like that, but maybe more to keep them close.

It looks like it might be a shell to me, OP. I'm no walled up skull recognition expert though.