The Copper Healing Wound Paradox of Telephus, son of Heracles in the Bronze Age

The healing properties of copper and copper oxide continue to offer tissue viability solutions in the modern era and have been documented as 2600-2200 BC in ancient Egypt where it was used to manage thoracic wounds and drinking water. It’s role as a beneficial driver of wound care may cover a wider era; occupying ancient history and legendary poems. The era of the bronze age (3300 BC-1200 BC) coincides with the time of the Trojan War presented in Homer’s Iliad (circa 1184-1183BC). In the cycle imminently before the war, there is an account of Telephus, one of the many sons of the immensely strong Demi-god Heracles who was famed for being physically the most like his father. Telephus is recounted as being injured by Achilles’ spear and having a chronic suppurative leg wound associated with this trauma. In the tale, Troy could not be found and the Trojan War could not be completed without the healing of this wound, so that Telephus’ wound was paradoxically healed by his assailant Achilles (on the advice of the famed Odysseus) by utilizing rust from the same spear that caused his wound injury (approximately 8 years later). If the spear was dated to the era of the Trojan war, it would likely be made predominantly of copper alloy and paradoxically, copper rust from that weapon or a similarly metallic composed one may have presented the beneficial healing properties of the Copper oxide noted in these weapons on the suppurative wound. It is also offers some plausibility that these events did not take place in the Iron Age (1200-600 BC); whilst both metals are necessary for wound healing, the majority of wound metallomics and metallic wound interventions favour copper, likely due to its fundamental role in early healing thorough its essential cofactor role in angiogenesis and the collagen stabilizing lysyl oxidase for early granulation tissue maturation (those for iron being based more in extracellular matrix deposition and remodelling). Not all sword injuries result in chronic wounds, though in a case of hereditary strength and muscle bulk syndrome, which might have been the case for the line of Heracles-Telephus, a possible familial myostatin mutation may explain an impaired healing tendency that may have been alleviated through the application of cooper oxide’s healing properties. Together, the interpretation of this paradox suggests an earlier understanding of the beneficial role of copper in wound healing in the era of the mid-to-late Bronze Age and highlight the advantages of persistent exploration for the mechanistic effects of this metal and its compounds in wound management research and strategies.