Gold grills that make people look like the Bond villain Jaws if he were a gaudy millionaire feel new, but the practice of putting gold in your teeth is ancient. According to a new study published in the British Dental Journal , it wasn’t just decoration; it functioned as a surprisingly advanced form of dental treatment centuries before modern dentistry figured out how to bridge a gap between teeth.

Researchers examining remains from a medieval burial site in Aberdeen, Scotland, found a thin wire, mostly gold, wrapped around two teeth. It was surprisingly advanced for the era it was created in and was built with an intention, engineered to either stabilize a loose tooth or serve as a framework for a replacement, basically an early version of a dental bridge.

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Today’s dental bridges are false teeth that fill the gap left by a missing tooth, with an additional pair of fake teeth on either end that slide over and are securely fastened by small pegs or screws, giving the appearance of teeth where…