Verisimilitude isn't normally much of a priority for statues of Jesus. As any historian will tell you, the Romans crucified through the wrists (not the hands) and he probably looked more like this guy than this guy. So when Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History X-rayed a Jesus sculpture from the 1700s it was a big surprise when they discovered he was outfitted with real human teeth, roots and all. Spooky!
1.
According to Yahoo News:
“We found that it has teeth that belonged to a human, we noticed it because the roots can perfectly be seen in the X-rays, and from its size we know they were from an adult,” Fanny Unikel, who led the restoration, told Reuters.
It is not uncommon for statues to have teeth and nails made out of animal bone, but real teeth were a first for the specialists.
I'm just guessing here, but maybe they opted for real teeth as work-around to avoid the time it would take to carve dentures (though the statue's title, The Lord of Patience, suggests the extra effort would have been the Christian thing to do). But according to Reuters, laziness wasn't the reason for J.C.'s enamel chompers. Researchers say the teeth probably came from a congregant who donated them to make the statue appear more realistic. (I would have started by getting the guy a better wig, myself.) You can peep the Jesus teeth along with the rest of the statue at the San Bartolo Cuautlalpan Temple in Zumpango, Mexico.
[via Gizmodo and Yahoo News]
