Petrotympanic fissure
The fissure petrotympanic - after their first describer Johann Heinrich Glaser and Glaser column - is an opening in the base of the skull through which the chorda tympani ( tympanic string ) and the anterior tympanic artery, a branch of the maxillary artery pass. The opening between the petrous ( temporal bone ) and the tympanic ( tympanic portion ) of the temporal bone ( temporal bone ) and dorsal to the glenoid fossa, the articular surface of the temporomandibular joint.