Centuries-Old Dentures Made From Real Human Teeth

By | November 30, 2016

Minozzi’s team has been working at the monastery of San Francesco, in Lucca, Italy, a Tuscan city that dates back to the Etruscans. The excavations included the tombs of the Guinigi family, one of the city’s most famous and powerful. The tomb contains the remains about 100 people, buried there over the course of time, so it’s not possible to precisely date the dentures from the context in which they were found.

dentures-1

“We couldn’t find the corresponding jaw, so we do not know who the appliance belonged to,” the lead archaeologist, Simona Minozzi, told Seeker.

dentures-2

The dentures include five teeth—three incisors and two canines—connected by golden pins to a golden band. The ends of the device are curled to fit around neighboring teeth; the whole thing would likely have been held in place by string.

dentures-3

A scan of the teeth shows the bar more clearly.

Devices like this one are described in writing, but this is the first archaeological find demonstrating the use of the technology. Whoever it belonged to, they got good use out of it: the archaeologists’ analysis of deposits on the dentures show that the person wore it for many years.

H/T University of Pisa