Unfortunately, scant evidence has been found of “dental interventions” in ancient Egypt, one of the few being a cavity packed with linen discovered in an Egyptian mummy about 2,100 years old. This may have been owing to their diet of coarse grains that aggressively wore down teeth. In 2012, anthropologists at the University of Zurich examined over 3,000 Egyptian mummies and found that 18 percent showed evidence of dental woes of some kind. The ancient Egyptians, it seems, were particularly prone to the maladies of the mouth. Ī CT Scan of an Egyptian mummy revealed severe dental issues. However, these fake teeth were likely implanted after death, a branch of dentistry no longer practiced catering to those embarking on the afterlife. In Algeria, archaeologists found a 7,000-year-old skull sporting a tooth fashioned realistically from bone, while in Egypt a 5,500-year-old skeleton was equipped with a tooth made from shell. That particular skeleton dates from the 3rd century BCE, but humans had been replacing their lost teeth thousands of years before that. The implant, an iron pin that screwed into the gum, held a fake tooth in place, but the archaeologists aren’t sure how the replacement tooth was made. Just this summer, archaeologists at a Celtic burial site in France discovered a skeleton with a dental implant. A paste made from plant resin, crushed bones and other ingredients was used to affix the gems to the teeth. Fortunately for the patients, the dentists appear to have known what they were doing and avoided drilling into the “pulp” of the tooth where nerve endings are located (although the procedure would still have been excruciating). The dentists in this case used drills made from a hard stone such as obsidian capable of carving into bone.
TEETH GEMS ANCIENT FREE
The anthropologists think that such decorations weren’t necessarily an indicator of one’s social standing as skeletons belonging to royals from that region and time period had teeth that had never been tampered with and were free from bling. In Mexico, anthropologists found thousands of teeth that had been notched, grooved and bedazzled with semiprecious gems. As many as 2,500 years ago, Native Americans were - to use the popular phrase - blinging out their teeth. Cosmetic dentistry was popular in various ancient cultures as well. Remedying dental maladies wasn’t the only reason ancient dentists found to chisel away at teeth.
TEETH GEMS ANCIENT CRACKED
The beeswax was only found in the single cracked tooth of the jaw and was likely placed there to mitigate the pain. The tooth was damaged in a way that is “consistent with damage that happens in a person’s lifetime” (not postmortem damage) and the wax was radiocarbon dated to the same time as the tooth. A jaw was discovered that contained a tooth with traces of beeswax on it. While no fillings were found at the site in Pakistan, a site in Slovenia yielded what may be a 6,500 year old dental filling during an excavation in 2012. Several flint drill heads were found at the burial site, as well as beads fashioned from bone, stone and shell, so it’s likely that the area’s jewelry-makers supplied the local dentists with the tools of their trade. They said that the drilling was probably done to alleviate pain from cavities. Researchers at the site in Pakistan surmised that a small bow was used to drive the drill tips into the teeth. Image credit: Image credit: Roberto Macchiarelli/Nature Unfortunately for those early patients, it’s unlikely that the dentists used any kind of anesthetic. There is no evidence of dental fillings however, at least one researcher believes some sort of “tarlike material or soft vegetable matter” may have been placed inside the holes. The holes were about one-seventh of an inch deep, except in one case where the dentist had managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth, boring out toward the front of the mouth. In fact, in a 2006 article for the journal Nature, researchers wrote about the “perfect,” “amazing” holes those flint drills had made. Nine-thousand-year-old teeth found at a Neolithic graveyard showed clear signs of drilling, but also signs that rotting gum tissue had been removed, leading researchers to consider the crude drills “surprisingly effective.” In modern-day Pakistan, where the earliest evidence of dentistry has been found, Stone Age dentists were wielding drills made of flint.
Imagine what a visit to the dentist must have been like thousands of years ago. We all cringe at the thought of going to the dentist - and that’s with the comfortable recliners, the soothing music, the anesthetics and analgesics.
0 kommentar(er)
