An iron tooth implant has been found in Northern France and archaeologists have put it at 2,300 years old, making it the oldest tooth restoration ever made. It is believed that the tooth was added to a dead body to make it look better, as the procedure would not have been possible with a living person at that time.
The implant looks like an iron pin that was fitted to replace the upper incisor and a false tooth was attached to the end of it. It was discovered in a female skeleton in 2009 and archaeologist Guillame Seguin told the BBC that the remains were ‘very badly preserved’ but the teeth were still in place, with a bit of metal in one socket. Seguin said that his first thought was ‘what is this?’
The woman was buried with bronze jewellery and ornaments which are thought to date back to the European Iron Age, which developed from 450BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC. The tooth was hammered into the jaw bone to make sure that it did not come loose, which suggests that the woman had already passed away before the dental work was carried out. A similar restoration was discovered in Essonne, France in the 1990’s but this implant is thought to predate that by over 400 years. Prosthetic teeth that were used to improve the appearance of dead bodies have also been found in Egypt in the past.