Blackened Teeth, Jaw Surgery, and Ancient Knitting - Ep 324

About this episode

The episode discusses ancient practices of tooth blackening, jaw surgery in a mummified individual, and early textile finds in Anatolia.

This week we are back with some News stories! First, we discuss evidence from an Iron Age cemetery in northern Vietnam showing intentional, permanent tooth blackening dating back 2,000 years. Then, we cover a 2,500-year-old Pazyryk culture burial in southern Siberia where CT scans of a mummified woman’s skull suggest a severe jaw injury was stabilized with surgical sutures. And finally, we summarize Bronze Age textile finds from Anatolia dated roughly 1915–1745 BCE and later, including the earliest regional evidence of nalbinding (single-needle “knitting”) and an indigo-dyed hemp fragment identified as the oldest known blue-dyed textile in Bronze Age Anatolia.

Topics covered

• Iron Age cemetery
• tooth blackening
• jaw surgery
• Pazyryk culture
• Bronze Age textiles
• nalbinding
• indigo dyeing

Keywords

• tooth blackening
• jaw surgery
• Pazyryk culture
• Bronze Age textiles
• nalbinding
• indigo dyeing
• Vietnam
• Siberia

Mentioned in this episode

Products: indigo-dyed hemp fragment

Books & works: nalbinding, Bronze Age textile finds

Places: northern Vietnam, southern Siberia

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