This news at one time passed almost unnoticed, although it is very curious. Back in 2015, Novosibirsk archaeologists found out that 2.5 thousand years ago, surgeons on the territory of Southern Siberia performed complex surgical operations, including craniotomy. At the same time, they had tools that were not yet in Europe.
(In the photos below, taken in this museum, not all artifacts are medical instruments, some are weapons, but each of these exhibits is a perfect product of masters who lived long before our era. And looking at them, you understand that in Siberia 2.5 thousand years ago there was an ancient advanced civilization).
“In the arsenal of the surgeon at the end of the first millennium BC there was an operational knife for cutting bones, saws, cutting tools, tweezers, medical probes and an analogue of a modern scalpel - a lancet. Most of these instruments are similar in form and function to those of European surgeons of the same time. The only exception is saws, which are not found in Europe during this period,”said Pavel Volkov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the SB RAS.
The scientist studied artifacts from the collection of the Minusinsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. N. M. Martyanov. Ancient surgical instruments were found in the monuments of the Tagar culture dating back to the period of the 4th-3rd centuries BC. He also examined the traces on the surface of trepanned skulls (IV-III centuries BC) and compared them with the traces of wear on a number of artifacts that could be used in medical operations in the Early Iron Age in Siberia.
Thus, the scientist revealed that the ancient surgeons used special operational knives to cut bone. “Tools of this type leave traces similar to those observed on trepanned turtles when cutting a bone,” Volkov explained. Also, among the arsenal of ancient physicians, special saws were identified that have no analogues in European archaeological collections.
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The scientist also discovered tweezers and instruments that could be used as medical probes in the collections of the Minusinsk Regional Museum.
“It is obvious that the inhabitants of the south of Siberia during this period possessed complex knowledge in surgery, not inferior to the ancient Roman and ancient Greek surgeons,” concluded Volkov.
The photo shows ancient Roman medical instruments.
Tagarians lived in the VIII-III centuries BC in the steppes of Southern Siberia, on the territory of the Khakass-Minusinsk depression (the Republic of Khakassia and the southern regions of the Krasnoyarsk Territory).
Author: Natalia Trubinovskaya