Amazing stuff!
Since my childhood I have known of the marvelous iron hand of the German knight of Götz von Berlichingen (1480 - 1562 CE). I have seen this iron hand during my visit of the Museum der Burg Jagsthausen. This is not the same iron hand that was used for this study.
"... Yet, such artifacts are rare direct sources into the lives of historical amputees. We focus on the tools amputees used in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. There are few records written from amputees’ perspectives at that time, and those that exist say little about what everyday life with a prosthesis was like. ...
But computer-aided design software can help scholars reconstruct the artifacts’ internal mechanisms. This, in turn, helps us understand how the objects once moved. ...
For two years, my team of historians and engineers at Auburn University had worked tirelessly to turn an idea – recreating the mechanisms of a 16th-century artifact from Germany – into reality. The original iron prosthesis, the Kassel Hand, is one of approximately 35 from Renaissance Europe known today. ..."
The hands of time: Auburn historians, engineers solve 500-year-old mechanical limb mystery (original news release)
The Kassel Hand Project
Liste Eiserner Hände (List of known mechanical iron hands of the 15th & 16th century CE. Strange, this Wikipedia entry is only available in German language)
The original Kassel hand
The 3D printed models
Two historical drawings of these mechanical, iron hands.
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