Page 14 - DILMUN 11

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DiSmun’s Ancient Teeth

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Karen Hojgaard

When‘Looking For Dilmun\ we of course, want Only a small amount of tartar and a negligible loss
to know how the fascinating ancient Bahrainis of the jawbone around the teeth were noticed. As
must have looked. As teeth are generally the best in all ancient populations, wear of the teeth was
preserved part of the body and both genetic and already heavy early in life.
environmental factors are stamped on them, a den­
tal anthropological investigation might contribute
a little to form the picture we are searching for.
Karen Frifelt and Geoffrey Bibby at Moesgard
and Jean-Francois Salles at Lyon, have kindly pro­ INDIVIDUALS
vided me with dental material. Detailed reports
dealing with the dentitions are published else­
where. 10-
The Bahrainis of 2,000 B.C. excavated from
burial mounds near Ali had well proportioned, 5-
delicately built jaws (fig. 1) with rather small,
well-formed teeth of bright, white enamel. The
teeth showed Caucasoid but no Mongoloid traits. 1- t-YEARS
20 25 30 35 40

Fig. 2

This wear is usually a guide to the assessment of
age at the time of death and with information from
Bruno Frohlich about the approximate age of
some of the few individuals with parts of the skull
preserved, an estimate was made of the duration of
life. The results are shown in fig. 2. From this it
appears that the inhabitants did not at all enjoy the
excellent health or eternal youth as mentioned in
the Gilgamesh epic.
One of the individuals of a later date, about
1000 B.C., displayed wear of the front teeth possi­
bly used as a tool which might have derived from
the twisting of rope or yarn.

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