Before describing in detail the dental appliances found up to now in Etruscan tombs, we will consider a question touching very closely upon the argument which we are treating and which has already been discussed in Professor Deneffe’s book, already cited. How is it that the dental appliances of the Phœnicians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans should have come down to us, notwithstanding cremation? In the first place, if one reflects that the teeth offer an altogether special resistance to the action of fire, and if one also remembers that gold was the substance employed for the construction of the appliances in question, and that this metal does not melt save at a very high temperature, it no longer appears marvellous if, in many cases at least, the dental appliances should have been able to resist the cremating process. In the second place, the cremation may possibly sometimes have been incomplete—that is to say, the skeleton may not have been altogether reduced to ashes; therefore, among the residuum of this incomplete combustion, a piece of a jaw may easily have remained, and incidentally also its prosthetic appliance. But besides all this, it must be considered that the custom of burning corpses was not at all general among ancient people. Indeed, cremation was not in use either among the Egyptians, the Phœnicians, the Hebrews, or the Chinese; the Greeks only resorted to it in exceptional cases. The most ancient tombs of the Etruscans show that at the epoch of their settling in Italy, cremation was in general use among them. But little by little, as they entered into commercial relations with the Egyptian, the Phœnician, and the Greek peoples, who did not burn their dead, the custom of burial substituted that of cremation. Toward the end of the sixth century before Christ there were to be found in southern Etruria, one beside the other, tombs for the burial of corpses and others for cremation. One sometimes finds in one and the same tomb a cinerarium (urn for conserving ashes) and skeletons enclosed in sarcophagi or resting on mortuary couches. At Tarquinii and Orvieto burial generally prevails. In the fifth century B.C., the epoch in which the Law of the Twelve Tables was promulgated, burial and cremation were equally in use among the Romans. In the second century of the Christian era burial was already prevalent, and through the influence of Christianity became general during the third and fourth centuries.[106] [Illustration: FIG. 13 Tooth crowns found in an Etruscan tomb of the ancient Vitulonia (Archæological Museum of Florence). The enamel-capsules of these teeth (four molars and one canine) are perfectly well preserved, whilst the ivory has entirely disappeared.] [Illustration: FIG. 14 The same tooth crowns of the preceding figure, seen from the side of the concavity of the enamel capsules.]