Researchers 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.
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