Zoroastrian News - اخبار زرتشتیان

While studying skeletal remains belonging to a woman from the Sassanid dynastic era (224–651 AD), anthropologists identified evidence of syphilis in the woman. The skeleton was found near Kangelou Fortress, located in the Iranian northern province of Mazandaran. The new studies prove that syphilis originated in Europe in contrast to some old theories which argue that the disease came from the Americas.

Announcing this news, Farzad Forouzanfar, director of the anthropology department of Iran’s Archeology Research Center, said: “Anthropological studies on the remaining skeleton of a woman from the Sassanid dynastic period revealed that it belonged to a woman who was 35 to 40 years of age at the time of death with a syphilis infection and severe bone protuberance over right arm which point to the existence of syphilis in the woman.”

Last spring, archeologists directed by Saman Surtiji discovered three graves while studying the path leading to the Sassanid Kangelou Fortress. Among the discovered graves, one belonged to the Sassanid era while the other two were from the Islamic period. A clay vase in green glaze, a metal bowl and six rings with agate gems bearing engravings as burial offerings were found in the grave of the Sassanid woman, buried on her left side in a squat position.

Covering an area of 50 square meters, Kangelou is an oval-shaped monument with Sassanid architectural style constructed in three stories with rubbles, plaster, and mortar. The ruins also indicate that it had arches, transept-like extensions, and a tower protecting it against landslides.

According to Forouzanfar, the new finding proves that chronic or inherited syphilis existed in Europe and Asia in the early first millennium BC, thereby disproving the theory that suggests the disease was spread across the world after crews of Christopher Columbus returned home from their expedition to the Americas.

Strong circumstantial evidence had long placed the blame mainly on the crews of Columbus and other explorers of the New World. Since the first clearly recognized cases in Europe occurred soon after their return, it was assumed that they had contracted the infection through sexual intercourse with American Indians and then spread it back home.

An opposing hypothesis holds that syphilis originated in early human evolution and so existed in some form in populations worldwide. In this view, the venereal disease had been in Europe all along, but was perhaps confused with leprosy. A convergence of social and economic trends, more than returning sailors, presumably accounted for the spreading European epidemic by 1500s.

Forouzanfar further added that evidence of syphilis prior to Columbus’ return to Spain from the New World in 1493 had also been seen in an ancient cemetery from the 3rd to the 5th millennia BC called Costbelle in southern France where bone trauma was observed in the fetus of a pregnant woman, suggesting the disease to be congenital.

Syphilis is a chronic systemic venereal disease caused by one of the subspecies Treponema bacterium called Treponema pallidum. Syphilis can also be passed from mother to infant during pregnancy causing a disease called congenital syphilis.

Untreated syphilis progresses through 4 stages: primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary stages. The pathognomonic lesion of the last stage or tertiary syphilis is the gumma, which is characterized by a center of necrotic tissue with a rubbery texture. Gummas principally form in the liver, bones, and testes and appear between one to 20 years after the first symptoms occur.

“Formation of gumma on the bones of patients suffering from tertiary syphilis results in holes appearing in the bones followed by chronic bone protuberance which are easily recognized,” added Forouzanfar.

This anthropologist believes that the new finding in the northern regions of Iran gives another evidence of the presence of the organism causing syphilis in Europe before Columbus and can help find an answer to how and why syphilis erupted with epidemic virulence in Europe at the end of the 15th century.