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serendipitypublishing
Skeptic Friend
60 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2005 : 15:46:23
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Here's a link to a page describing the Amesbury archer, aka the King of Stonehenge.
http://www.50connect.com/50c/articlepages/genealogy_index.asp%3Fsc%3Dhist%26aID%3D8731
From that website I was interested in asking your opinions on this :
quote: Two gold hair tresses were found lodged in mud in his jaw
Why could these objects not have been cavities showing that they had knowledge of dentistry ?
Possibly showing that they had knowledge of mercury.
quote: mercury dissolves other metals in it to make instant alloys, or amalgams. A gold or silver amalgam made with mercury is an excellent material for filling tooth cavities, hardening rapidly and wearing well. It dissolves precious metals found in ores—and then can be distilled almost as easily as alcohol, boiling at only a few hundred degrees, to leave the gold or silver behind. And being extremely dense, mercury is useful for making small lab apparatus like blood-pressure gauges or the standard barometer (which would be 10 meters tall, not 0.8 meter, if it used water instead).
Why were the hair tresses logged in the jaw ?
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'We're all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars' Oscar Wilde
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/freeflowpyramids/ |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2005 : 16:23:12 [Permalink]
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Don't know about Stonehenge, but mercury and cinnabar, and a great deal of metalurgy, were well known in Egypt before the building of the pyramids. From the jaw of a mummy, bored to relieve an abcess, it is known that they also practiced dentistry.
In fact, dentistry, in one form of or another, was practiced by many, ancient cultures, and all had some form of medicine.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2005 : 21:34:56 [Permalink]
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That link doesn't go where you say it goes. All I get are advertisements.
Secondly, why shouldn't the ancients have had knowledge of dentistry? Someone, after all, had to be first, and I'm not so arrogant as to think we've only learned to treat bad teeth in the last couple of centuries. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail) Evidently, I rock! Why not question something for a change? Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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serendipitypublishing
Skeptic Friend
60 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2005 : 08:51:35 [Permalink]
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Apologies for the link, not sure what happened there. Anyway there's plenty of articles out there describing the Amesbury Archer or King of Stonehenge. I agree with Dave W and Filthy. So why does every site describe the gold objects found logged in the jaw of this man as Hair tresses ? |
'We're all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars' Oscar Wilde
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/freeflowpyramids/ |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2005 : 09:20:53 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by serendipitypublishing
Apologies for the link, not sure what happened there. Anyway there's plenty of articles out there describing the Amesbury Archer or King of Stonehenge. I agree with Dave W and Filthy. So why does every site describe the gold objects found logged in the jaw of this man as Hair tresses ?
Well perhaps people who have actually looked at the material are smart enough to distinguish between what looks like dentistry and hair tresses. |
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serendipitypublishing
Skeptic Friend
60 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2005 : 21:42:52 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by serendipitypublishing
Does this intelligence extend to give a reason why they had 'Hair tresses' logged in their jaws ?
Think about it this way: if you find something made of gold, hollow, and looking like this, then to argue with the archeologists that they might be fillings implies that you think the archeologists are complete idiots.
The link I gave above also seems to argue that they were ear cuffs, and not hair tresses, but either way, should it surprise us that something worn near the head could find its way into the mouth after being buried for 4,300 years? After all, the body had no cheeks anymore.
And if by 'logged' you mean 'lodged,' I'd like you to give us a citation for a scholarly paper which describes precisely where and how the tresses/cuffs were found. What part of the jaw? How firmly were they lodged? At least one report says they were found in mud inside the jaw. Did that happen before or after burial? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail) Evidently, I rock! Why not question something for a change? Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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serendipitypublishing
Skeptic Friend
60 Posts |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2005 : 05:10:53 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by Dave W. The link I gave above also seems to argue that they were ear cuffs, and not hair tresses, but either way, should it surprise us that something worn near the head could find its way into the mouth after being buried for 4,300 years? After all, the body had no cheeks anymore.
And if by 'logged' you mean 'lodged,' I'd like you to give us a citation for a scholarly paper which describes precisely where and how the tresses/cuffs were found. What part of the jaw? How firmly were they lodged? At least one report says they were found in mud inside the jaw. Did that happen before or after burial?
Indeed, Dave. For the gold objects to have been considered early dental work, you'd like them to have actually been bored into the teeth! That they weren't clearly indicates that they served some other function.
You're so anxious to prove something (what is still not clear) that you're letting it get in the way of your analysis of data-- not a good sign. |
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serendipitypublishing
Skeptic Friend
60 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2005 : 12:37:12 [Permalink]
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quote: Originally posted by serendipitypublishing
This is true, I must pay more attention to details.
Unless the gold objects were protecting the gums from bacteria leakages, in an attempt to reduce the abscess !!
I suggest you fashion a small circle of metal into the shape found, put a band on it, and try to fit it to any one of your own teeth. To put it another way, you're now implying that when it comes to dental work and/or abcesses (which were at least as common then as they are now), those ancient people were complete morons.quote: I'm just trying to see things from an alternative angle.
How about this for an "alternative": in life, the gold items were actually shin guards, and the man stood no taller than six inches (something about the soil made his bones expand during his long burial). Or, they were couplings for ancient surgical tubing, and the man died during an attempt at a full blood transfusion through his carotid artery.
My point is that the number of "alternative angles" on a subject is essentially limitless, so long as one ignores the likelihood of any of them being correct. That these items were jewelry for either hair or ears isn't a wild-assed guess on the part of the archeologists, but a highly educated deduction based upon their knowledge of the artifacts, the people and the times in question. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail) Evidently, I rock! Why not question something for a change? Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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