lost history Archives - ATLANTIS RISING THE RESEARCH REPORT

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Widespread caries and toothache – but also some dental work and filing of front teeth. Viking Age teeth from Varnhem in Sweden bear witness to surprisingly advanced dentistry. This has been shown in a study carried out at the University of Gothenburg.

The study examined 3,293 teeth from 171 individuals among the Viking Age population. The site is known for extensive excavations of Viking and medieval environments, including tombs where skeletons and teeth have been preserved well in favorable soil conditions.
The teeth underwent clinical examinations using standard dentistry tools under bright light. A number of X-ray examinations were also performed using the same technique used in dentistry, where the patient bites down on a small square imaging plate in the mouth.
The results, which have been published in the journal PLOS ONE, show that 49% of the Viking population had one or more caries lesions. Of the adults’ teeth, 13% were affected by caries – often at the roots. However, children with milk teeth – or with both milk and adult teeth – were entirely caries-free (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295282).
The findings suggest that caries, tooth infections, and toothache were common among the Viking population in Varnhem. However, the study also reveals examples of attempts to look after teeth in various ways.
“There were several signs that the Vikings had modified their teeth, including evidence of using toothpicks, filing front teeth, and even dental treatment of teeth with infections,” says Carolina Bertilsson, a dentist and Associate Researcher, and the study’s first-named and corresponding author.
One sign of more sophisticated procedures was molars with filed holes, from the crown of the tooth and into the pulp, probably in order to relieve pressure and alleviate severe toothache due to infection.
The filed front teeth may have been a form of identity marker. In both this and previous studies, the cases found were male. Carolina Bertilsson continues:
“This study provides new insights into Viking oral health, and indicates that teeth were important in Varnhem’s Viking culture. It also suggests that dentistry in the Viking Age was probably more sophisticated than previously thought.”

AR #84

The New Crystal Skull Enigma

by Phillip Coppens

A gold coin long dismissed as a forgery appears to be authentic and depicts a long-lost Roman emperor named Sponsian, according to a new study.

The coin, housed at The Hunterian collection at the University of Glasgow, was among a handful of coins of the same design unearthed in Transylvania, in present-day Romania, in 1713. They have been regarded as fakes since the mid-19th-century, due to their crude, strange design features and jumbled inscriptions.
In the new study, published in PLOS ONE, researchers compared the Sponsian coin with other Roman coins kept at The Hunterian, including two that are known to be genuine (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274285).

They found minerals on the coin’s surface that were consistent with it being buried in soil over a long period of time, and then exposed to air. These minerals were cemented in place by silica – cementing that would naturally occur over a long time in soil. The team also found a pattern of wear and tear that suggested the coin had been in active circulation.

Lead author Professor Paul N. Pearson (UCL Earth Sciences) said: “Scientific analysis of these ultra-rare coins rescues the emperor Sponsian from obscurity. Our evidence suggests he ruled Roman Dacia, an isolated gold mining outpost, at a time when the empire was beset by civil wars and the borderlands were overrun by plundering invaders.”

The Roman province of Dacia, a territory overlapping with modern-day Romania, was a region prized for its gold mines. Archaeological studies have established that the area was cut off from the rest of the Roman empire in around 260 CE. Surrounded by enemies, Sponsian may have been a local army officer forced to assume supreme command during a period of chaos and civil war, protecting the military and civilian population of Dacia until order was restored, and the province evacuated between 271 and 275 CE.

Coinage has always been an important symbol of power and authority. Recognizing this and unable to receive official issues from the mint in Rome, Sponsian seems to have authorized the creation of locally produced coins, some featuring an image of his face, to support a functioning economy in his isolated frontier territory.
When the coins were discovered in the early 18th century, they were thought to be genuine and classed alongside other imitations of Roman coins made beyond the fringes of the empire. However, from the mid-19th century, attitudes changed. Coins from the hoard were dismissed as fakes because of the way they looked. This has been the accepted view until now.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/nov/ancient-roman-coins-reveal-long-lost-emperor