Rob Beschizza
Gear

3000-Year-Old Leather Toe May Be World's Oldest Prosthesis

Didrick Medical’s articulated, non-robotic prosthetic fingers are a marvel of technology, but it looks like it might have been beaten to the idea — by about 3000 years. Pictured above is what researchers at the University of Manchester believe is the world’s oldest articulated prosthesis: a leather toe attached to the foot of a female […]

070727084801

Didrick Medical's articulated, non-robotic prosthetic fingers are a marvel of technology, but it looks like it might have been beaten to the idea — by about 3000 years. Pictured above is what researchers at the University of Manchester believe is the world's oldest articulated prosthesis: a leather toe attached to the foot of a female mummy.

"The toes date from between 1000 and 600BC, so if we can prove that one or both were functional then we will have pushed back prosthetic medicine by as much as 700 years," said Jacky Finch, who is carrying out the study at Manchester's KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.

It all comes down to whether it's merely a cosmetic piece attached to the corpse, a kind of sympathetic-magic digit for use in the afterlife, or something that flexes and works in actual use.

Science Steps In To Discover Wonders Of Toe-tankhamun [Science Daily]