An archaeological dig at the site of a 12th-century church in Scotland has unearthed more evidence that “advanced dental treatments” existed for hundreds of years prior to the formal establishment of modern dentistry, a new study contends. But, unfortunately, the sheer cost of this nearly solid gold medieval procedure was very likely out of reach for most people. Researchers with universities in Australia, Scotland, and the United States pieced together details on the new find: a thin gold ligature wrapped deftly around two old teeth. The ligature, something like a modern dental bridge, stretched out over the healed socket of a tooth now very much lost to history. Its thin metal wire (82.4% gold, 9.8% silver, and 2.5% copper) would be considered 20-carat gold today. It was found carefully threaded around two incisors jutting out from the jawbone of a man once buried at the East Kirk of St. Nicholas Kirk in Aberdeen, Scotland.…