Are there 213 bones in the human body? 208? How many bones are in the hand ? Are you lost questioning yourself about human skull anatomy? Well we are here to summarize these questions and give you simple but effective answers.

We will see together :

• The structure of human skulls.
• An overview of cranium and facial skeleton bones.

There are typically around 270 bones in human infants, which fuse to become 206 to 213 bones in the human adult.

Our skull has a bony structure to support your face and protect the brain with a protective cavity. The human skull consists of multiple bones based on intramembranous ossification and gathered by fibrous joints known as sutures.

The human skull bones are divided into two major categories. These categories are known as:

• The cranium
• The facial skeleton

In humans, these two parts are known as the viscerocranium and the neurocranium, which also contains the mandible and the most prominent bone.

However, the cranium bones consist of a cranial base and cranial roof. At the same time, the facial skeleton is based on all the bones meant to support your face’s soft tissues effectively.

The skull also develops the skeleton’s anterior-most portion and is cephalization’s product that houses the brain and various sensory structures, including eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. In the human skull, all of these sensory structures are a part of the facial skeleton.

Overall, the skull comprises various fuse flat bones and contains different processes, foramina, fossae, sinuses, or multiple cavities.

Structure of human skulls

Other than the mandible, all the different bones of the human skull are joined together via sutures—synarthrodial that are immovable joints created by bony ossification. However, the fibers of Sharpey here permit some extent of flexibility to them.

However, besides the categories mentioned above, there can be some extra bones within the suture that are called sutural bones or wormian bones. Most commonly, these bones are found in the lambdoid suture’s course.

Generally, it is considered that the human skull is made up of 22 different bones; eight of these bones are cranial bones, while 14 of these are known as facial skeleton bones. 

During fetal development, the skull bones from within fibrous, tough membranes in the head of a fetus. However, these bones grow throughout our childhood and fetal development. Therefore, these start to fuse and create a single skull. In contrast, the only bone in the human skull that remains separate from the other skull bones is the jaw bone, also known as the mandible. Earlier separation of these bones usually provides the fetal skull with the necessary flexibility.

Even during childhood development, skull bones remain separated to some extent; This is necessary for the optimal bones and brain growth within the human skull. However, when humans reach maturity, the bones of the skull fuse to form a rigid and protective shell for protection of the soft nervous tissues and brain.

An overview of Cranium and facial skeleton bones

In terms of the neurocranium, these are occipital bone and parietal. It also has,

• Two temporal bones
• Frontal bones
• Sphenoid
• Ethmoid

However, the facial bones skeleton includes two inferior nasal conchae, the vomer, two maxillas, two nasal bones, two palatine bones, the mandible, two lacrimal bones, and two zygomatic bones.

Most importantly, you must know that some sources also consider paired bones as one of the maxillae as two bones. Even more, some of the sources also include hyoid bone or the middle ear’s three ossicles. However, whatever this consideration is, the common consensus of the total number of bones in human skulls is considered as twenty-two.

Also, some of the bones, including the occipital, frontal, parietal, in the neurocranium, and the lacrimal, nasal, and vomer, which are facial skeleton parts, are flat bones.

Let’s get to know a bit of each skull bone below to learn more about the things in this regard. So, here we go:

Cranium

The superior skull aspect creates the Cranium. This part of the skull is also known as the neurocranium and is meant to protect and enclose meninges, cerebral vasculature, and the brain.

Due to this, a Cranium is usually subdivided into a base and a roof. Let’s get to know about these aspects of Cranium below:

Cranial base

The cranial base is composed of six bones. These include sphenoid, occipital, frontal, ethmoid, temporal, and parietal. These skull bones articulate with the atlas, also known as the st cervical vertebra, the mandible, and the facial bones.

Cranial roof

The cranial roof is composed of occipital, frontal as well as two parietal bones. The cranial roof is also known as calvarium.

The Facial skeleton

The facial skeleton, aka the viscerocranium, is meant to support our faces’ soft tissues. The facial structure is comprised of 14 bones that fuse to house the eyes orbits, the oral cavities, the sinuses, and the nasal cavities.

The frontal bone, commonly known as the calvaria’s bone, is sometimes part of the facial skeleton.

However, the details of the bones included in the facial skeleton are given below:

Two Zygomatic bones

Such type of bones create our face’s cheekbones and articulate with the frontal, temporal, maxilla, and sphenoid bones.

Two Lacrimal bones

Lacrimal bones are known to be the smallest bones of the face. These bones form a part of the orbit’s medial wall.

Two nasal bones

These are the two slender bones that can be found at the bridge of the nose.

Two Inferior nasal conchae

These bones are situated within our nasal cavity, which can help in increasing the nasal cavity’s surface area. As a result, we can experience an increasing inspired air that will contact the cavity walls.

Two palatine bones

These bones are located in the rear part of our oral cavity. Also, these bones are meant to create a portion of the hard palate.

Two Maxilla bones

These bones contain a part of the hard palate and upper jaw.

Mandible or jaw bone

This bone articulates with the skull’s base at the TMJ (temporomandibular joint).

Vomer

The vomer is meant to form the nasal spectrum’s posterior aspect.

All of these bones are joined together with sutures. The suture is a specific type of fibrous joint that is exclusive to the skull only. Sutures are immovable joints that usually fuse completely around 20.

Are you ready to merge anatomy and decoration?

We got to see the different components of the human skeleton together, it was a challenge to summarize it all, but we hope you feel like an expert in skeletal anatomy after reading this blog, you will win the debates on the topic😜

The most sacred part of the human skeleton is the skull. Find a beautiful collection of skulls for decoration to install anywhere in your home, living room, living room, bathroom, kitchen, office or bedroom; you will love seeing these wonders everywhere.