The fantasies of eradicating head lice are probably as old as mankind. Now the first literal curse has been found.
Ulrich Seidler
There was blood on it once. The lice comb whose inscription has now been discovered and deciphered.Israel Antiquities Authority
What are 3,700 years when you come into direct contact with your ancestors: A lice comb made of ivory was found in Israel with an inscription on it – the oldest sentence written in the Caanitic language. A sensation, reports the German Press Agency. This is direct proof that the alphabet was used in everyday life even then. “This is a milestone in the history of the human ability to write,” proclaims the Hebrew University, in a sentence not pretty enough and too off topic to carve into a comb.
The sentence that someone scratched letter by letter into the 3.5 by 2.5 centimeter small object, which was made from the already very precious material and was dated to 1700 BC, is an angry, destructive and straightforward sigh: “May this tusk die Eradicate lice in hair and beard”. Anyone who expresses himself so decidedly and takes the trouble of engraving and costs the material will have a reason. One can almost physically feel the contained anger being forced out between the teeth (those of the mouth, not the comb).
lust for murder and despair
This sentence must have had a painful, itchy backstory, during which despair built up and led to actions that weren’t entirely rational but still understandable. It is possible that this desperation was exploited by a resourceful comb dealer who was able to take into account the magical power of the writing and the high-quality material.
Anyone who has ever handled a lice comb knows how murderousness and desperation creep up on you. Nowadays, the bloodsuckers and their eggs are mostly smothered with an oil tincture before combing out, but some can still be seen wriggling between the tines. Before you crack them with your fingernail. Even if one is not aware of the equipment in the sleeping camps of the time, one can imagine the effort that had to be made to get rid of the critters. Today you put the bedclothes in the washing machine, the cuddly toys in the freezer – and enjoy the satisfaction while imagining the agonizing end of the bloodsuckers, how they drown in the lye or freeze to death in the dark.
3,700 years later, that’s almost 200 human and over 60,000 lice generations, the bloody battle of our and their ancestors is still not over.