Sunday, June 12, 2011

Ancient Prosthetics

From Past Horizons: Replicas of 3000 year old artificial big toes have been tested on volunteers and are shown to be the world’s earliest functional prosthetics.

The toes date from before 600 BCE, pre-dating what was hitherto thought to be the earliest known practical prosthesis, the Roman Capua leg which dated to c. 300 BCE. Unfortunately, the Capua leg was burned when the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons was bombed in World War II.

From Payvand News (Iran): reports that an ancient artificial eye has been discovered in Iran. This "eye" dates back to at least "4800 years ago" and was "discovered in prehistoric site of Burnt City (Shahr-e Soukhteh)".

Two holes were also created on the sides of this eyeball to hold it in the eye socket and according to head of the excavation team in burnt City, is seems that the leather bag which has been found inside a straw basket in the grave must have been a kind of eye glass holder which was used for holding the artificial eyeball in some cases for example sleeping times.

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