Scientists recently uncovered an unexpected secret inside of the mouth of a French noblewoman from the 17th century: her teeth were held together with gold wire.
In 1988, archaeologists discovered the centuries-old remains of Anne d’Alegre at Chateau de Laval in western France.
Anne had passed away in 1619. Buried in a lead casket, her skeleton and teeth were well-preserved. Although in 1988 archaeologists found that she had a dental device, they were unable to find further information because they didn’t have the sophisticated scanning technology that exists today.
Remarkably, more than thirty-five years later, a new team of archaeologists and dentists were able to analyze her skeletal remains and confirm she experienced periodontal disease. It caused the loosening her teeth.
“Cone Beam” X-rays produced three-dimensional images showing that gold wire had been used to secure her teeth.
The study is detailed in the most recent edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science where the study’s authors said the finding, “provides the first demonstration of a link between a diagnosis and a therapy on an identified individual using new digital technologies used in modern dentistry.”
She was also found to have a custom-made ivory tooth crafted from an elephant tusk, not a hippopotamus tusk as was commonly used at the time.
However, according to Rozenn Colleter – an archaeologist at the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research and lead author of the study – this intricate dental care only “made matters worse”.
According to the researchers, over time these gold wires would need regular tightening, thereby increasing the instability of nearby teeth.
D’Alegre’s suffered the pain partly because societal standards of the time put immense pressure on aristocratic women, equating beauty with worth and social status. “Beyond the only therapeutic care and far from the only coquetry,” the authors said, “this study shows also the importance of the appearance for aristocratic women submitted to strong social constraints (like stress or widowhood).
For d’Alegre, a twice-widowed socialite of “controversial” notoriety, the power of a nice smile was especially pertinent to her reputation.
She was a French Protestant Huegenot, at a time when Protestants and Catholics clashed in a series of conflicts during the late 1500s. She had been widowed twice, and had a young son, all by age 21.
With the nation eventually embroiled in the Eighth War of Religion, d’Alegre and her son were compelled to seek refuge from Catholic forces while the king appropriated all of their possessions. Her son later embraced Catholicism and then ventured to Hungary where he lost his life in a battle at 20 years old. At the age of 54, D’Alegre herself died due to illness.
D’Alegre’s teeth reflect the immense amount of stress she had suffered, Colleter said. She expressed her desire that the research could potentially restore some of the respect and honor she had lost.
