Atherosclerosis is regarded as a disease of modern times, and yet examples of it have been identified in human remains from an elite Chinese burial (around 700 BCE) and among Canadian Eskimos (1520-400 BCE) whose diet was almost entirely meat. Ruffer1 described arterial lesions including dense calcium deposits in dozens of Egyptian mummies in 1911, and Shattock2 noted atheromatous deposits in the aorta of King Menephtheh in 19O9. These findings were confirmed later by the radiological survey of Harris and Wente in 198O that also reported3 vascular calcification in the mummies of Ramesses II, Ramesses III, Sethos I, Ramesses V, and Ramesses VI of Egypt.4
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