An elite Bronze Age man who underwent brain surgery 3,500 years ago may have suffered from leprosy, archaeologists believe

• Archaeologists discovered the remains of a man from the Bronze Age who had a rare brain surgery.
• The finding reveals the earliest example of trephination in the ancient Near East, scientists said. 
• The two brothers discovered were likely elite or even royal members of their society.

While excavating a tomb from an ancient Bronze Age city, archeologists were surprised to discover the remains of a man who appeared to undergo brain surgery thousands of years ago.

Trephination — a procedure that involves cutting a hole in the skull — has historically been a common medical practice for ancient civilizations around the world. 

A new study published this week, however, suggests the practice dates all the way back to the Bronze Age — the earliest example of this kind of cranial surgery in the ancient Near East and potentially one of the oldest examples of leprosy in the world.

During an archeological excavation of a tomb in Tel Megiddo, Israel, researchers discovered the remains of two Bronze Age brothers who lived between 1550 BC and 1450 BC, a study published in PLOS ONE journal found. 

Co-author of the study Israel Finkelstein said the city Megiddo was one of the "wealthiest and most cosmopolitan" in the region in 19th century B.C.

"It's hard to overstate Megiddo's cultural and economic importance in the late Bronze Age," he said in a statement.

The older brother is estimated to have been between 21 and 46 years old, and the younger brother was estimated to be in his late teens or early 20s. Evidence of brain surgery — angular notched trephination — was discovered in the older brother. 

Rachel Kalisher, the lead author of the study and scholar at Brown University's Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, said that the brothers were likely elite or even royal members of their society — a reason they could have received the rare medical treatment. 

The study also suggested both men were seriously ill in their lifetime, but researchers said it was unclear exactly which ailment would have required the invasive surgery — either leprosy or some other kind of infectious disease.

The use of trephination, in this case, proved unsuccessful, however, and the man died shortly after, researchers found. Still, Kalisher said she hoped the finding would help illuminate forms of medical care and the cultural dynamics from the ancient period.

Despite the rare finding, Kalisher said there is still a lot that scientists don't know about the ancient medical practice, so she plans to continue to research trephination across multiple regions and time periods.

"You have to be in a pretty dire place to have a hole cut in your head," Kalisher said in a statement. 

"I'm interested in what we can learn from looking across the scientific literature at every example of trephination in antiquity, comparing and contrasting the circumstances of each person who had the surgery done."