The cut marks reveal the extent of traumatological and oncological treatments practised by ancient Egyptians
Cut marks on 4,000-yr-old skulls show ancient Egyptians tried to treat cancer
Ancient Egyptians attempted to operate on excessive tissue growth
or learn more about cancerous disorders after a patient’s death, revealed a
study on two 4,000-year-old skulls.
Known to be the place of one of the early civilisations, ancient
Egyptians have been known to identify, describe, and treat diseases and
traumatic injuries, build prostheses, and put in dental fillings.
To understand their further prowess, an international team of
researchers studied two human skulls—male and female and each thousands of
years old.
The cut marks on the skulls revealed the extent of traumatological
and oncological treatments practised by the ancient Egyptians, they said in the
paper published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.
Edgard Camaros, a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago
de Compostela in Spain called the discovery “unique and extraordinary” evidence
of how ancient Egyptian medicine would have tried to deal with or explore
cancer more than 4,000 years ago.
The two skulls—Skull and Mandible 236, dating from between 2687
and 2345 BCE, belonged to a male individual aged 30 to 35, while Skull E270,
dating from between 663 and 343 BCE, belonged to a female individual who was
older than 50 years.
Microscopic observation of skull 236 showed a big-sized lesion
consistent with excessive tissue destruction, known as neoplasm.
Further, there were also 30 or so small and round metastasised
lesions scattered across the skull, with cut marks probably made by a sharp
object such as a metal instrument.
“When we first observed the cut marks under the microscope, we
could not believe what was in front of us,” said Tatiana Tondini, a researcher
at the University of Tubingen in Germany.
Analysis of Skull E270 also showed a big lesion consistent with a
cancerous tumour that led to bone destruction, and two lesions from traumatic
injuries that received treatment.
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