Head on a spike

This has been a custom in a number of cultures, typically either as part of a criminal penalty following execution or as a war trophy following a violent conflict.

The earliest known archeological evidence for mounting heads on stakes has been identified in Sweden, at a Mesolithic site in Kanaljorden, in the floor of a dried lake, dating to 8,000 years ago.

The crania exhibited evidence of blunt force trauma that looked to have resulted from a violent confrontation.

Archeologists interpreted the wooden stakes as evidence that the heads had been mounted for display by members of the Swedish Mesolithic hunter-gatherer culture.

Criminal punishment was sometimes posthumous, as the body of Oliver Cromwell was exhumed so that it could be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his head was mounted on a spike and displayed for 30 years.

Oliver Cromwell's head was placed on a spike and erected in the 17th century. A drawing from the late 18th century.