the skeleton

axial skeleton · braincase

Frontal bone

Os frontale · one of them · also called forehead bone, brow bone

It shields the front of the brain, forms the roof of both eye sockets, and holds a pair of air pockets called the frontal sinuses just above the eyebrows. Run a finger from the bridge of your nose straight up over the brow and back to the hairline - that whole hard curve is a single bone, and it is where a sinus headache is felt.

it starts life as two bones, and the seam between them, the metopic suture, usually closes by age six

what it joins onto

• Parietal bonethe paired curved plates that make most of the roof and sides of the braincase
  • coronal suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Sphenoid bonewedged across the base of the skull, tying the braincase to the bones of the face
  • sphenofrontal suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Ethmoid bonebetween the eye sockets at the roof of the nose - the lightest of the eight cranial bones
  • frontoethmoidal suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Maxillaupper jaw - the paired bones carrying the upper teeth and forming the mid-face
  • frontomaxillary suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Zygomatic bonecheekbone - the strut between the eye socket and the arch in front of the ear
  • frontozygomatic suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Nasal bonethe small paired bones making the hard bridge at the top of the nose
  • frontonasal suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint
• Lacrimal bonea thin scale in the inner wall of each eye socket, cradling the tear duct
  • frontolacrimal suturefibrous suturenone - it is a fixed joint