Is there a dentist in the house?

I've been a dental ceramist for the last 22 years. I've spent the last 14 years working pretty closely with a couple of specialists, actually participating in case planning and being chairside during procedures. I don't see any pottery glaze in your picture. The "part that widens out" is the "crown" of the tooth, & should be covered with shiney enamel (underneath that is dentin, then pulp, then nerve). The root portion of a tooth doesn't have enamel. The material that makes up the exterior surface of the root is called "cementum", and can be fairly rough on an extracted, dried tooth. It's hard to tell how big your tooth is in the picture. From the pictured lingual surface (the tongue side), it looks like it flares a little too much to be human, I'm thinking a barnyard animal. If the picture was of the labial surface (the side that contacts the inside of the lip), it would be a lot easier to identify it.

Anyway, the picture looks like a real tooth.

Is there one or two "roots" off the base? If it's one, I think you have found a guitar peg.

getherduged said:

Is there one or two "roots" off the base? If it's one, I think you have found a guitar peg.

Click to expand...

Most likely, from the Flintstones era

always trust a man that can pull off a handlebar mustache... Looks like a tooth to me... too bad you couldn't put it next to a coin or something to reference the size.

Ya suppose they used varnish on George Washington's wooden teeth?

Hi guys, I'm a dentist! That is a tooth no doubt about it, but from the looks of it not human. The flare as posted before is much too wide to be a human incisor. Can you take another pic of it from the other side with a quarter next to it? The glaze is just the natural shiney part of the enamel.
Hope this helps!
Doc

Thanks everyone. The tooth is at my parents house but here is a picture I took earlier in the week. Perhaps a sheep tooth? I really haven't a clue. The site dates back from the 1700's and we have found very interesting things. This could have been left over from someone's dinner. I was just shocked that the enamel stayed that well intact. The other teeth that we have found have been nothing quite like this.