Mayan´s - The first Dental Implantologists?

The Mayans were inventors, scientists, farmers and craftsmen who developed astronomy, a calendar system, and hieroglyphic writing just to name a few. The Mayans resume is extensive and impressive including building highly decorated ceremonial architecture, such as temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all without the use of metal tools and can boast of being skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Mayans were equally skilled as weavers and potters, clearing routes through jungles and swamps to create extensive trade networks with distant peoples.  It should really be of no surprise we´ve discovered they were dentist as well.

 When I first heard of the young Mayan woman discovered with the first known dental implants I immediately pictured in my mind a young woman in her early 20´s from a wealthy Mayan family with a  simply desire to be beautiful, just like any modern girl her age.  I wondered would she stroll by the water to see her reflection desperately wishing she had a beautiful smile to flirt with the boys or did she avoid her reflection and act shy around the young men her age?  Did her father search out a medicine man for his daughter or did a man of vision approach the family with his revolutionary idea.  It was around 600 AD when the woman I think of as Lilly had three dental implants placed in her lower jaw, small shells to replace her missing teeth, she must have been quite the rage after that, at least for a time, she didn´t survive past her twenties.

We´ve come a long way baby! It wasn´t until 1952 when Swedish orthopedic surgeon, P Irånemark  was experimenting, studying bone and regeneration when he discovered the osteo-integration process that makes dental implants possible today, and then, it wasn´t until 1965 when the first titanium dental implant was placed on a Swedish volunteer, Gösta Larrson.  

Today at Costadental we have on staff,  highly experienced personnel specializing in dental implants and full mouth restoration at affordable prices ready to give you the smile you have always dreamed of and to think it all began with the Mayans.