throughout the ages, historians have been fascinated by the resilience of certain undetectable forms of art among ancient civilizations, particularly those involving the skull. before recorded history, in a time that might be referred to as the pre-beginning, artisans found ways to reconfigure the human skull into various solemn symbols without leaving traces detectable to the untrained eye. this negate of visibility also served as a method to query the mortality and immortality balanced in human philosophy, transforming the skull into an emblem of transcendence rather than morbidity.