Archaeologists in Germany made a remarkable discovery when they unearthed the remains of a Medieval man with an ancient iron prosthetic hand.
The complete skeleton of a middle-aged man at the time of his death was accidentally discovered by pipeline workers near the St. George parish church in Freising, a Bavarian town 24 miles northeast of Munich.
Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation said in a statement: "Even for experienced archaeologists, this was a particularly special find: a skeleton in which parts of the fingers of its left hand are missing."
Archaeologists said that this was the advanced state of medicine at the time, constructed from iron and other metals, and likely covered with leather. Within the fingers of the prosthetic, restorers found wrinkled tissue, indicating that it had a gauze-like textile to cushion the stumps of the man's hand.
Dr. Walter Irlinger, head of the Bavarian Archaeological Monument conservation department, explained, “The hollow hand prosthesis on the left hand added four fingers. The index, middle, ring, and little fingers are individually formed from sheet metal and are immobile,”
The Medieval man's remains were discovered in a grave near the St. George parish church in the Bavarian town of Freising, located approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Munich. This remarkable find occurred during utility work.
Archaeologists noted that approximately 50 similar prostheses from the same time period have been found in Central Europe.
These prosthetic devices vary in complexity, ranging from immobile ones like the one uncovered in Freising to intricate, movable prosthetic hands, such as the famous one worn by the knight Götz von Berlichingen after 1530.
