The process includes removing the skull and flesh, then stitching the mouth and eyes shut, boiling it, and filling the head with stones and hot sand.

Mercer University repatriated the head to the Ecuadorian consulate in Atlanta in 2019, hoping to properly preserve it and ultimately make it part of a collection. Mercer University chemist Adam Kiefer, who is co-author of a study published in the Journal of Heritage Science, said, “This is not an oddity — this is somebody’s body, this is somebody’s culture, and it’s not ours. So from our perspective, repatriation was essential, and we were very lucky that our university supported this endeavor.”

In the 19th century, shrunken heads were popular knickknacks and fakes were plentiful. In order to meet the demand, some went as far as to create them from bodies taken from morgues and cemeteries (via The Collector). The genuine artifacts, however, deserve to be treated with respect, not as souvenirs.