Golfer and Tennis Elbow in Byzantine Turkey: Epicondylitis a Neglected Occupation/Activity Marker in Antiquity

Abstract

Both lateral and medial epicondylitis are well known in modern medicine as diseases of occupation, leaving recognizable lesions on the epicondyles. We report on 36 individuals from the 8th-10th century AD Byzantine period from Kovuklukaya, near Sinop, Middle Black Sea region, Northern Anatolia, Turkey. The present study focuses on medial and lateral epicondylitis with lesions of enthesopathies and bony pits, assessing the frequency of these lesions in the skeletal series and whether these characters provide new and/or additional criteria for the diagnosis of activity patterns in archaeological specimens. We then discuss the significance of these lesions in interpreting the activities of past populations, possible reasons why these lesions were not previously reported by paleopathologists and the application of our findings to the assessment of activity patterns and occupational stress markers in past populations.