Ancient Dentistry – How much has changed?

Ancient Dentistry – What do we know?

First of all, when I say “ancient dentistry,” I really do mean ancient. Discoveries of ancient dental treatment have shown us that even 14,000 year old teeth have had some form of primitive dentistry applied to them. A little more recently, there was an instance of drilled teeth (for what is expected to be medical application) found in Pakistan that dates back 9,000 years. There’s been some descriptions used for the drilling done during this time period, and it’s basically just a piece of flint, attached to something long and slender. In ancient dentistry, anesthetics like we have now, were not available, so these procedures would have been hardly comfortable, to say the least.

Both of these findings showed signs that dental work was indeed done. In ancient dentistry, they even used bees wax to fill the holes in that were drilled. It sealed the tooth off from air, food, and other things that could have been lodged into the cavity. Today we have much more advanced materials to fill a tooth with than bees wax, but their reasoning still stands today. Smart thinking by some ancient dentists.

“Chewing sticks,” which served as some kind of ancient toothbrush, were even used as far back as 3000-3500 BC, in ancient Babylonia. Dental picks made of bone and wood have been used as well for a very long time. It seems the idea of caring for your teeth was not an uncommon thing.

So, it seems