Thus, for a group of instruments to be identifiable as a medical kit, it must include at least one example of the former category. As soon as the instruments had been excavated, a detailed examination was made with the assistance of radiographs, and any doubt as to their medical function was dispelled. Here (figure 1) was an instrumentarium, albeit of modest size, but consisting of a complete set of the basic tools of ancient surgery: scalpels, sharp and blunt hooks, spring forceps, handled needles, a scoop probe, and a surgical saw—13 instruments in total, four of bronze, seven of iron, and two of composite iron and bronze. Although most are complete and generally retain both their original surface and their functional ends, they are fragmented, very fragile, and extensively encrusted with corrosion products. Conservation is currently in progress, and our full report on the set must await the completion of that process and the results of scientific analyses. However, the importance of the kit is already clear. Buried in the AD 50s, it is not only the earliest identifiable surgical kit from Britain but one of the earliest surviving instrumentaria from anywhere in the ancient world. This may explain its rather idiosyncratic appearance, for most of the instruments are subtly different from the relatively standardised forms that Roman instruments acquired from the beginning of the 1st century AD. In fact, only one instrument is of typical Roman form, the slender bronze scoop probe or cyathiscomele, which was a general purpose medical and pharmaceutical implement (not specifically a spud or sharp spoon for curetting tissue as has recently been claimed: Roman sharp-rimmed or toothed-rimmed scoops are known, but the Stanway instrument is not demonstrably of that type). Nevertheless, the set is clearly related to other known Roman instrumentaria, both in its composition and in the general form of the individual instruments (compare figures 1–4). For general surgery the essential or core instruments comprised one or more examples of spring forceps, sharp hook, scalpel, needle and probe, the last three of which could also be put to use as heated The first definite and properly excavated ancient British medical kit has been found at Stanway, near Colchester, Essex, UK. Stanway was a sacred site close to the leading Iron Age centre at Gosbecks, and it has several large funerary enclosures apparently dating to the decades after the Roman conquest of AD 43. Each enclosure has a principal burial chamber, believed to have been dug for the remains of members of the local tribal nobility, surrounded by a number of lesser graves. The kit, which is more than 1900 years old, comes from a satellite burial in Enclosure 5. I was invited to visit the site in August, 1996, by the site director, Philip Crummy, of the Colchester Archaeological Trust, to view the contents of the grave while they were still in situ. Initially, attention had been focused on the discovery in the grave of a wellpreserved board game, an evocative and exciting find that was widely reported in the lay media. But on this occasion, my advice was sought on some slender implements of corroded metal that were lying across the top of the board game. Could they be medical instruments? The presence of a spring forceps seemed to imply that they were, but a suspension loop at the top of the forceps—a feature not found on Roman surgical instruments, but almost universally applied to Roman toilet implements—cast doubt on the identification. The other objects were still obscured by soil and corrosion, so it was necessary to await their full excavation before attempting a detailed assessment of their status. Toilet and cosmetic implements have all too often been overinterpreted as medical instruments, and it was important to avoid a similar misidentification. Over the past 15 years, a few researchers in the specialty of ancient medicine have sought to establish clearly the range and types of instruments used by Roman medical personnel. Some instruments were specifically for medical use, whereas others had both medical and non-medical uses.
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May 22, 2020
Haocheng Quan + 4
