Archaeological sensation – An ivory comb with an ancient message: Get rid of the lice! – Knowledge




Archaeological sensation – An ivory comb with an ancient message: Get rid of the lice! – Knowledge – SRF
























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Legend:

Dafna Gazit/Israel Antiquities Authority





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This find shows that parents 3,700 years ago had the same concerns as we do today. They just fought them differently.

“May this tusk wipe out the lice in your hair and beard” – this is the inscription on an ivory comb that is around 3,700 years old. It was found during excavations in Israel in 2017. But the inscription was only discovered last year.

The find is considered a sensation because the inscription is the first fully deciphered sentence of Canaanite writing, from the early development phase of the alphabet. The Latin alphabet, in which we write today, later developed from this original alphabet.

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The ivory comb is worn and has lost some of its teeth. However, the stumps show: He once had very widely spaced teeth for detangling hair and 14 narrower ones for combing out lice and their eggs.

Apparently, people were already using the alphabet in everyday life back then, which is a milestone in the history of human ability to write, according to the researchers.

The inscription also shows that people have been suffering from lice for thousands of years and apparently even the richest were not spared. The difference: Today we have special shampoos and sprays against the annoying animals. Back then, a saying had to suffice.




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