Etruscan Gold Dental Appliances: Three Newly "Discovered" Examples

Dental appliances fashioned from flat gold bands are known from references in ancient Roman literature and have been recovered from archaeological contexts since the late 18th century. Wire appliances of gold and silver are known from the eastern Mediterranean and have completely different origins and functions. Recent research on the known corpus of these ancient appliances, many of which have been lost, provides considerable insight into their cultural uses as well as their place in dental history. Of considerable interest are three Etruscan examples, now lost, that were brought to the United States in the 19th century. The origins and configurations of these three appliances are discussed here to augment what is known about other Etruscan examples, of which only 20 can be documented and nine survive. All appear to have been used as decorative bands or to support replacements to one or both upper central incisors of women from whom healthy teeth had been removed deliberately.* The Etruscan origins of gold dental appliances, around the middle of the seventh century B.C., have long been recognized.1 These appliances are all fashioned from flat gold bands, and used to hold a false tooth or teeth in place or to stabilize teeth loosened by periodontal disease. Several lists of these appliances have been presented over the past century, but attempts to generate a complete catalogue have long been thwarted by the presence of numerous modern copies, poor descriptions in the literature, and by erroneous identifications of various other objects as examples of ancient dental work. Many false examples of ancient dental appliances have been created by publishing photographs of them upside down, or by reversing the negative in making a print. Thus a single object can be turned into four examples through errors in the making or use of a single photograph. The negative of an appliance believed to be fitted to the upper rightjaw, when printed backward, appears to represent an appliance from an upper left jaw. When inverted these two prints become four examples, but all may derive from a single negative. While this might seem a simple problem to correct, only an important recent study by L. Bliquez has resolved many of these issues.2 The following observations derive from a project to identify and describe in detail all the known examples of Etruscan gold dental appliances and other ancient dental prostheses. During an exhaustive search of the literature three Etruscan examples were identified as having been brought to the United States, but were lost about 100 years ago. ANCIENT DENTAL APPLIANCES An effort to reconcile the very limited archaeological evidence with direct information from the study of Etruscan dental appliances and the teeth associated with them has further expanded understanding of this subject. Two sources of information neglected by previous studies have significantly advanced our understanding. First, the direct evidence * This project was conducted while I was a Consulting Scholar to the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I would like to thank Donald White, Curator of Mediterranean Archaeology, for his encouragement and support of this research. My sincere thanks are also due John Bennet and an extremely careful anonymous AJA reviewer for their contributions to the completion of this manuscript, and to the many other people who helped in so many different aspects of this research. Special thanks are due Larissa Bonfante and Ingrid Edlund for their help in guiding this project in its earliest phases and to Lawrence Bliquez and John Robb for their generous sharing of important data relating to my general study of ancient dental appliances. A portion of the information concerning William Barrett was originally gathered in 1991 at the request of William Feagans, Dean of the Dental School at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Those data were incorporated in the museum display then being organized for the 100th anniversary of the Dental School. The aid of Dean Feagans in my search for these appliances in Buffalo is most gratefully acknowledged. I E. Gaibrici, "Necropoli di eta ellenistica a Teano dei Sidicini," MonAnt 20 (1910) cols. 44-45; L. Bonfante, "Daily Life and Afterlife," in L. Bonfante ed., Etruscan Life and Afterlife (Detroit 1986) 250. 2 L. Bliquez, "Prosthetics in Classical Antiquity: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Prosthetics," ANRW 37:3 (1996) 2640-76. See also M.J. Becker, "Spurious 'Examples' of Ancient Dental Implants or Appliances," Dental Anthropology Newsletter 9:1 (1994) 5-10; Becker, "A Roman 'Implant' Reconsidered," Nature 394 (1998) 534; and Becker, "Ancient 'Dental Implants': A Recently Proposed Example from France Evaluated with Other Claims," International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants 14 (in press). 103 American Journal of Archaeology 103 (1999) 103-111 This content downloaded from 144.26.117.20 on Thu, 14 May 2015 18:13:01 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 104 MARSHALL JOSEPH BECKER [AJA 103 from odontometrics-the measurements of the elements that make up these appliances and/or any teeth that have survived-suggest that only Etruscan women wore them.3 Second, detailed examination of the extant examples has yielded precise information regarding their construction.4 When combined with the extensive archaeological data, this new evidence seems to confirm that gold dental appliances were worn only by Etruscan women, suggesting that cosmetic concerns were paramount in their creation. This accords well with what is known about Etruscan women and their public presentation. The decline of Etruscan culture in the face of growing Roman dominance also may explain why these appliances appear to have faded from view, probably in a pattern parallel to the decline in the use of the Etruscan language.5 The literary evidence for Roman use of dental prostheses remains unsupported by archaeological evidence. Different mortuary customs among the Romans may have resulted in the removal of gold appliances before interment, or the use of these decorative items may have been restricted to Etruscans living among the Romans. Direct and detailed study of the nine surviving Etruscan appliances and, whenever possible, the few teeth that survive has been basic to the creation of a new catalogue. Also included in this new list are the six known "Eastern" wire dental appliances associated with the later Phoenician tradition. These are fashioned from gold or silver wire, but appear to have served purposes distinct from those of the Etruscan form. The Eastern appliances, however, were only worn by men.6 A catalogue incorporating all of the known appliances as well as some suspected examples also enables us to identify copies, of which many exist, as well as specious examples of appliances and objects that have been considered to be dental implants.7 Intensive searching of the archaeological, dental, and technical literature has revealed two examples that had come to the United States and were not noted in previous catalogues. A third and nearly unknown example was also brought to America about the same time. All three of these specimens, now lost, were originally published in obscure journals. In this article I collate the evidence on these pieces and assess their contribution to our understanding of this important aspect of Etruscan technology