THE MOST PROMINENT SCOLIOSIS IN ANCIENT ANATOLIAN POPULATIONS: EXAMPLE OF SİNOP BALATLAR ORTHODOX CHURCH

Abstract

Scoliosis is a lateral deviation of the spine from the mid-sagittal plane. Scoliosis is a descriptive term, not a diagnosis. The spine of a person with scoliosis is more like the letter "S" or "C" than a straight line. The aim of this study is to understand what scoliosis is, how scoliosis is detected in paleopathological studies, and to describe the scoliotic skeleton found in Sinop Balatlar Church Excavation in 2019. The Balatlar Church building complex was used as a cemetery by Orthodox Christians from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Although many rare pathologies have been encountered in paleopathological studies on Anatolian societies, the number of samples in which scoliosis is so prominent is almost absent. With this study, it is aimed to contribute to this field. The skeletal pathology of an elderly woman over 65 years of age has been contributed to the literature by determining the degree of scoliosis both in the laboratory environment and with computed tomography images.This study will provide an important literature for future paleopathology studies.