Oldest prosthesis

The oldest known prosthesis is a wood-and-leather artificial big toe that was found attached to an ancient Egyptian mummy dating from 950–710 BCE. Artificial versions of missing body parts were a common part of Egyptian burial rites, but most were added after death for cosmetic and religious reasons. This particular prosthesis, known as the Cairo Toe, is unique because it is jointed and flexible, with signs of wear that clearly indicate it served a practical purpose. It is 2,727–2,967 years old as of 2017.

The Cairo Toe was discovered in 2000 by archaeologists from Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. It was attached to the mummy of a woman in her 50s or 60s whose big toe on her right foot had been surgically amputated for an unknown reason. The amputation had healed cleanly and the wear on the toe indicated that she had been walking with the artificial toe for some time. In 2012, researchers from the University of Manchester tested this hypothesis by asking some individual with similar toe amputations to test a replica of the original prosthesis. They found that they could walk quite comfortably with the wood-and-leather prosthesis.