Scientists studying an
Egyptian mummy at the National Museum of Scotland made a dental discovery:
the mummy had distinctive buck teeth, a sign that he had sucked his thumb
for an extended period of time.
The team had been assigned
the task of building a model of the skull of an Egyptian nobleman named
Petrie 3. Since they did not want to damage the mummy or the coffin, they
took x-rays and CT-scans through the sealed coffin. From these, they were
able to create a plastic replica of Petrie's face. The results indicated
to Dr. Iain McLeod of the Edinburgh Dental Institute that "the front
teeth of the mummy seemed to be sticking out and distorted. This is a sign
of someone who sucked their thumb for a long period of time causing
the upper cleft to distort This may be the earliest documented case of
thumb-sucking."
Petrie 3 is one of the
museum's most famous mummies. Discovered in 1911 by Sir Flinders Petrie
near El-Fayum, it appears to date from 100 A.D.
