300-year-old Christ statue has real teeth, x-rays show

 

For 300 years, an otherwise ordinary statue of Jesus Christ awaiting punishment has been keeping a secret: it contains real human teeth.

 

The statue "Christ of Patience" may reflect a tradition where human body parts were donated for religious purposes, LiveScience.com reported.

 

"We have to remember that these people were very, very religious. They believed absolutely that there was a life after death and this was important for them," said Fanny Unikel Santoncini, who first discovered the statue's teeth.

 

Unikel is a restorer at the Escuela Nacional de Restauración, Conservación y Museografía at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología E Historia (INAH) in Mexico.

 

The painted wooden statue depicts Christ seated and bloody, garbed in human clothes and a wig.

 

"In Mexico, there are many statues like this — not only Christ, but Saints, the Virgin Mary," Unikel noted.

 

Many statues in Mexico use false teeth made from animal bone, with a statue of the devil having a set of dog's teeth.

 

But in this case, the teeth seemed to be in good condition, with the roots even present.

 

"The finding is even stranger in that someone would donate such healthy teeth for the statue given that the statue's mouth is barely open, and the teeth aren't even visible unless someone peers inside," LiveScience quoted Unikel as saying.

 

Researchers now hope to study them more carefully to figure out more about the owners, including their age and sex.

 

Accidental discovery

 

LiveScience said the discovery was an accident, when the Christ of Patience was among the statues to be restored by the INAH researchers.

 

The team took x-rays of the statues as part of the restoration work, and discovered the real human teeth.

 

Tracking owner

 

With no documents, LiveScience said it would be hard to find the original owner of the teeth, who could be a devout parishioner or even many different people.

 

Unikel said that while it is possible someone extracted the teeth from an "unwilling victim," the sculptor would never have revealed it.

 

"For us, it seems mad (but) the way they thought about the body was different from ours," Unikel said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News