Police have released a sketch of a woman whose embalmed head was found by in Pennsylvania woods last week and are now asking the public for help identifying her.

The head was found by a resident walking in the woods in Economy in Beaver County on December 12 and the county coroner deduced it had been embalmed - although it is not known how long ago.

As the image released on Monday shows, it appeared to belong to a woman, aged 50 or older, with whitish gray hair that appeared to have been styled.

Authorities added that her teeth were intact and appeared to be in good condition. She has now been laid to rest.

Who is she? The Economy Police have released this sketch of a woman whose embalmed head was found in a wooded area on December 12. They are trying to find out who she is and what happened to her

With her identity unknown, authorities are asking for the public's help in identifying her.

'She is someone’s loved one; sister, mother, grandmother and aunt,' Chief of Police Michael O'Brien said at a press conference on Monday.

'Police, County Detectives and the Coroner’s office are continuing to investigate all aspects of the remains. We all have been working diligently and using all resources available to further this investigation.'

Police refrained from releasing a photo of the embalmed head, saying they wanted to be sensitive to the woman's family.

O'Brien previously said the head appeared to be in good condition, leading police to believe it hadn't been there more than a week - but because it was embalmed, investigators can't be entirely sure.

'It's so bizarre, nobody has ever heard of anything like this,' O'Brien said.

That's one reason police don't suspect the woman was the victim of a homicide - but depending on how and why the head wound up in the woods, a crime still could have been committed.

Among other things, it's illegal to abuse a corpse in Pennsylvania.

Scene: The 'bizarre' was find was made in the woods of Economy in west Pennsylvania, however cadaver dogs that searched the area only found the head, and not a corpse

'What's bizarre is not that we've found a head, it's that we've found a head that's embalmed,' O'Brien said. 'That's what's really strange about the whole thing.'

Search crews using cadaver-sniffing dogs searched the area, but found no other remains.

Police are contacting medical schools to see if the head is from a cadaver, and are entering DNA from the remains into a nationwide FBI database for missing persons.

If police can determine the woman's identity, that gives them a starting place to determine who would have had access to her body and when.