The Mayas were a peaceful people with a highly developed culture who inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula. They were accomplished smelters and forgers of gold, silver, and bronze in addition to being highly skilled in cutting, polishing, and engraving precious and semiprecious stones.
Despite these skills, they did not perform restorative or corrective dental procedures. The skills they developed for working on teeth were for ritual or religious purposes. The Mayas were skilled in the fabrication and placement of beautifully carved stone inlays in precisely prepared cavities in the front teeth. These inlays were made of various minerals, including jadeite, iron pyrites, hematite, turquoise, quartz, serpentine, and cinnabar.
A round, hard tube was spun between the hands or in a rope drill, with a slurry of powdered quartz in water as an abrasive, to cut a perfectly round hole through the tooth enamel. The inlay was then cemented into place. The stone inlay was ground to fit the cavity so precisely that many have remained in the teeth for thousands of years.
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