Bad Teeth Tormented Ancient Egyptians

[Adsos Letter]

SOURCE: Discovery News
By Rossella Lorenzi

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years.

After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases.

"Evidence of dental disorders is plentiful because usually teeth are among the best preserved parts of a body. As for other diseases, the published studies do not always provide in-depth details. Nevertheless, we came across some interesting findings," senior author and medical doctor Frank Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, told Discovery News.

CT imaging revealed an impressive collection of diseases, including bone disorders, infections and traumas being the most common disorders.

LINK: http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/mummies-teeth-disease-diagnosis.html

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Video and photo at the link.

[imdjh]

1. What do you expect? They lived to be 120 years old and never saw a dentist.

[tabatha]

2. More like 40 years.

[undeterred]

3. Bad Teeth and other illnesses Tormented 21st century Americans

That's what they'll say when they find us.

[pansypoo53219]

4. sand

big part of the problem.

[KoKo]

6. and that they used "grinding stones" to mill their flour. the chewing of

the bits of stone powder helped wear down their teeth. Also possibly lodged between gums causing perio pockets to form. At least that's what I've read about it.

[me b zola]

5. ...and modern Americans

:(

[Kablooie]

7. Is that why great grandma Kahoutek was so grumpy all the time?

[cowcommander]

8. Mummies were probably upper class

Having access to sweeter foods probably rotted their teeth quite a bit. Would be interesting to see a comparison done between the upper and lower classes.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Some of them died excruciating deaths

I remember hearing of autopsies of mummies that had severe dental infections.

Here's an account of typical Egyptian dentists and the problems they faced from a dental perspective:
http://www.egyptologyonline.com/the_dentist.htm

[OnionPatch]

10. And if we didn't have dentists, a whole lot of us would have pretty bad teeth, too.

I've always wondered why teeth are so prone to failure. Seems like a real design flaw.

[Odin2005]

11. It's a side effect of agriculture.

Agriculture lead to a massive increase of starchy food in the diet, which promoted tooth decay. Hunter-gathers tend to have fairly healthy teeth.

Humans actually have the thickest tooth enamel of all primates, IIRC, because of the switch to tougher foods when our ancestors started living in savannas.

[imdjh]

12. We lived in Charleston.