Oct 18, 2012

Historic Egyptian Prosthetic


File:Prosthetic toe.jpgResearchers have suspected two Egyptian artificial toes are the world's oldest known prosthetic body parts. A new study suggests that is the case: Volunteers without a big toe showed the prosthetics would have made walking around in ancient Egyptian sandals much easier, suggesting they were not just used in burial or in some other non-practical way.
One of the artifacts in question is the Greville Chester toe, now in the British Museum. It dates back before 600 B.C. and is made of cartonnage, an ancient type of papier maché made with a mixture of linen, animal glue and tinted plaster. The other is the wood and leather Cairo toe at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which was found on a female mummy near Luxor and is thought to date back to between 950 and 710 B.C.
If the parts were indeed used to help ancient Egyptians missing a big toe walk normally, they would be the earliest known practical prostheses — older than the bronze and wooden Roman Capua leg, which dates back to 300 B.C.



Source

7 comments:

  1. I find myself amazed at the ingenuity of the human being..! I wonder how did they come up with the idea to replace a missing limb if it was possible?? Fantastic discovery.!!

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  2. That is very cool, and proves that everything old is new again.

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  3. Amazing, the creative brain has known no time limits.

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  4. that is so cool. 600 BC? Wow. how'd they have time to come up with the papier mache? perhaps slaves probably did all the necessary things for daily living so others had the luxury to think and create.

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  5. Don't forget that we also have the ancient Egyptians to thank for beer...!

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  6. This is really interesting. The ancient Egyptians were much more advanced than people give them credit for. Some think they also had discovered an ancient form of battery power.

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  7. This was really interesting. But, I'm afraid, the whole time I was reading it I was thinking of that "scary" camp story that ends with "Who's got my big toe?!? You've got it!!!"

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