The external carotid artery supplies the face, meninges and neck. It branches off the common carotid artery at the level of the thyroid cartilage’s superior border whereupon it exits the carotid sheath (unlike the internal carotid). Travelling superiorly, it gives off the superior thyroid, ascending pharyngeal, lingual, facial (grooves submandibular gland), occipital, posterior auricular, maxillary and superficial temporal arteries (the last two branches dividing in the parotid gland).

Some anatomists like freaking out poor medical students

Mnemonic: external carotid artery branches

The middle meningal artery is a continuation of the maxillary and enters the cranium at foramen spinosum into the space between the dura mater and bone. The artery has two branches, of which the anterior passes deep to the pterion (where sutures of the parietal, temporal, frontal and sphenoid bones meet) and is therefore liable to tears during cranial fractures.