Early Gold Dental Bridge Examined

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND—Live Science reports that a dental bridge was discovered on the lower jaw of a man whose remains were unearthed at St. Nicholas East Kirk in northeastern Scotland. The man was middle-aged when he died sometime between 1460 and 1670, said bioarchaeologist Rebecca Crozier of the University of Aberdeen. The bridge was made of a gold wire, called a ligature, that was wrapped around two front tooth roots to span the gap between them. The wire was probably fashioned and installed by a jeweler, she added. “The application of the ligature would likely have caused some discomfort during the procedure,” Crozier said, explaining that it likely rubbed against the root of one of the anchoring teeth, and made it difficult to bite into something hard. The man therefore may have undergone the procedure for the sake of his appearance. “The wire was either holding in place the actual lost tooth or a prosthetic tooth,” Crozier concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in British Dental Journal. To read about a curious dental Viking practice, go to "Toothy Grin."