In the 5th century BC, Herodotus described in his book "Histories of Herodotus" about the Blemmyes tribe's unusual appearance. According to Herodotus, members of the Blemmyes tribe had no heads but their eyes, nose, and mouth were located on their chest.
Herodotus was not the only one who claimed the existence of the Blemmyes tribe with such a distinctive appearance. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder affirmed that headless people did exist in the world.
According to Pliny the Elder, these unique individuals were a nomadic tribe who once lived in Ethiopia.
The renowned writer and playwright William Shakespeare also depicted a similar group of people with eyes, nose, and mouth on their chest in his plays "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1602) and "Othello" (1605). The only difference is that Shakespeare referred to them as Anthropophagi.
Throughout over 2,000 years of history, many reports about headless people with eyes, nose, and mouth on their chest have attracted considerable attention.
For example, in 1211, an explorer named Fermes claimed to have encountered a tribe of headless people with eyes and mouths on their chest living on an island in Ethiopia. Fermes revealed that these unique-looking people were toweringly tall, measuring over 3.6 meters.
Headless people have been mentioned in Western literature for centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Examples include:
Lewis Carroll (author of "Alice in Wonderland") created some characters based on objects in Ripon Cathedral – where his father worked, and the Blemmyes inspired his character Humpty Dumpty.
In Umberto Eco's novel "Baudolino," the protagonist meets the Blemmyes along with the Sciapod (Monopod – a mythical dwarf with a large foot in the middle of its body) and other medieval monsters on his quest to find Prester John.
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