Two-millennia-old tablets

摘要

Our knowledge of ancient medicine typically comes from contemporary texts or other works written in the first century ad. Scientists have now had the opportunity, however, to directly characterize what seem to be medicinal samples found in a shipwreck dating back from the second century bc. Medical tools that may have belonged to a physician — including a stone mortar, a bronze cupping vessel and numerous tin vessels (pyxides) — were among the cargo found on board the Relitto del Pozzino, discovered in 1974 off the coast of Tuscany. An Italian-based team led by Erika Ribechini at the University of Pisa have analysed well-preserved discoid tablets of about 4 cm in diameter and 1 cm thick that were stacked in a pyxis.