the.com/sacrum
The triangular keystone of your spine, named sacred because Romans thought it housed the soul.
means The large, triangular bone at the base of your spine, formed from fused vertebrae, that wedges between your two hip bones and anchors the pelvis.
from From Latin os sacrum, 'the sacred bone,' itself a translation of the Greek hieron osteon. Why 'sacred' is debated: one tradition holds the bone was offered in sacrifice or thought to guard something holy within; another suggests 'hieron' here simply meant 'large' or 'strong,' and the 'sacred' reading is a later gloss. So the name we use every day may rest on an ancient mistranslation — vivid either way.
- fused bones
- Five vertebrae welded into one by adulthood
- name origin
- From Latin os sacrum, the sacred bone
- weight bearer
- Transfers your entire upper body to the hips
- sex difference
- Wider and flatter in female pelvises for birth
- last to fuse
- Bones merge only in your late twenties
sacrum of lucy — 3.2 million year old hominin skeleton found in ethiopia, shows early bipedal adaptation