The morphological appearance of the palatine torus in the Cracovian skulls (XV-XVIII century)

Abstract

The paper presents a morphological analysis of the palatine torus of the Cracovian skull dated from XV-XVIII^th century. The cranial collection analysed comprised 98 skulls with the hard palate preserved but only 27 male and 28 female skulls showed the palatine torus. The length, breadth and height of the palatine torus were measured, and a visual inspection of the position and form of the torus was performed. Our findings suggest that most typical of the skulls analysed is a medium-sized mound-shaped palatine torus in an antero-posterior position, which means that the torus occupies the palatal processes of the maxilla and the horizontal plates of the palatine bones along the mid-palatal suture. Mean parameters of the palatine torus were established as: length - 25.7 mm (male) and 28.3 mm (female), width - 10.8 mm (male) and 10.2 mm (female), height 2.7 (male) and 3.2 mm (female). There are no significant differences between mean values of the parameters of the palatine torus.