The Bling of the Ancients 61
If you think hip-hop stars like Flavor Flav started the craze of jewel-studded teeth, you'd be wrong. A new study shows that Native Americans were using sophisticated dentistry techniques to add bling to their smiles 2,500 years ago. These ancient people used notches, grooves, and semiprecious gems to beautify their teeth. According to the study, the dentistry was for purely cosmetic purposes. "They were not marks of social class," says José Concepción Jiménez, an anthropologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Cosmetics (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. Methinks that all cosmetics are about improving your social class, and the quality of those cosmetics indicates which social class you can get away with claiming to be part of.
The more things change... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They were not marks of social class"
Well, that's not surprising. They aren't now, either.
"They were not marks of social class" (Score:2, Insightful)
And he knows this HOW?
It takes two to do this, the ersatz Dentist and the willing patient.
The Patient needed to endure a lot of pain, no Novocain in those days, and no one would go thru this, and no one would PRACTICE this Medicine or Magic (as the case may be) without some perceived social benefit.
How can one say 2500 years after the fact that these were not marks of a Social Class? It seem far more likely the anthropologist's understanding of the social class structure is seriously flawed.
Re:"They were not marks of social class" (Score:1, Insightful)
They may not have had Novocain, but taking cocaine wasn't illegal back then.
Social class would be ascertained by other factors. For example, how did we know the pharaoh of old were really important (and of high social class)? Duh, the care that was taken of their bodies and the treasures surrounding them.
Re:"They were not marks of social class" (Score:4, Insightful)
Social Class means ALL Classes, not just those you deem to be of significance in your little power centric view of the world.
Were the prostitutes and lap dancers all buried in specific manner? Were Entertainers and Witch Doctors entombed according to a formula? What about Soldiers, Thieves, and the petty district enforcers? How about the drug trading class?
Would you be so naive and parochial to suggest that having a body covered with prison tats is not an indicator of social class today?
Re:No Freezing (Score:1, Insightful)
We still don't know if the jewels were ever inside the teeth while they were alive.
Wear and decay patterns would reveal whether this was a procedure for living patients or not. Physical anthropologists are very skilled at interpreting such things.
I do not know what the answer would be, but I am confident an accurate answer will be forthcoming if it is not already available.