Deformity in the "Boxing Boys".

The late Bronze Age wall painting the Boxing Boys (c. 17th-16th century BCE) was excavated in the ancient town of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Thera. This article considers a medical interpretation for the spinal-pelvic anomaly in the anatomy of one of the boys. The artist has depicted a combination of structural anatomical adjustments diagnostic of spondylolisthesis, a forward slippage of one of the lumbar vertebrae. The accurate portrayal of the surface appearance of this condition suggests that the artist painted directly from a live subject. Thus, the Boxing Boys mural may be the earliest visual record of a sports-induced injury. Although the meaning of the wall paintings is unclear, the wild goats (agrimia) on the adjoining walls simulate swayback as a reflection of the boy's torso deformity and share other features with the boxers, adding to the unifying characteristics of the room. The abnormal morphology appears to be the earliest achievement of transforming disease into aesthetic charm on a monumental scale.

Therapy with saffron and the goddess at Thera.

This paper presents a new interpretation of a unique Bronze Age (c. 3000-1100 BCE) Aegean wall painting in the building of Xeste 3 at Akrotiri,Thera. Crocus carturightianus and its active principle, saffron, are the primary subjects at Xeste 3. Several lines of evidence suggest that the meaning of these frescoes concerns saffron and healing: (1) the unusual degree of visual attention given to the crocus, including the variety of methods for display of the stigmas; (2) the painted depiction of the line of saffron production from plucking blooms to the collection of stigmas; and (3) the sheer number (ninety) of medical indications for which saffron has been used from the Bronze Age to the present. The Xeste 3 frescoes appear to portray a divinity of healing associated with her phytotherapy, saffron. Cultural and commercial interconnections between the Therans, the Aegean world, and their neighboring civilizations in the early 2nd millennium BCE indicate a close network of thematic exchange, but there is no evidence that Akrotiri borrowed any of these medicinal (or iconographic) representations. The complex production line, the monumental illustration of a goddess of medicine with her saffron attribute, and this earliest botanically accurate image of an herbal medication are all Theran innovations.