The History of Dental Implants

Dental implants have actually been traced as far back as the ancient civilizations in China and Egypt. In 2000 BCE, the Chinese were using carved bamboo stuck into the gumline of a missing tooth. The Egyptians were the first civilization to introduce metal implants. In 1000 BCE, archeologists actually uncovered a mummy that had a copper implant hammered into his jawline. 700 years later, a Frenchman was discovered with an iron implant, although it is suspected that this implant was placed after his death because the pain of hammering an iron slug into the gums would have been excruciating. 

Rarely, animal teeth would be used as implants – however, many people found that these would become brittle quickly as they were not implanted into the root or attached to the jawline. Many would only last a few days.

As advanced as our world has become in the medical disciplines, it was actually pretty recent history that dental implants were considered a modern technology in dentistry. While many dentists experimented with dental implant options in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, it was not until 1956 that the first titanium dental implant (discovered by an orthodontic surgeon) was surgically placed. With this successful implant, dental advancements started to ramp up.