Fact check: Image of Colosseum carved on tooth made digitally as part of advertising campaign

The claim: Image shows Colosseum carved into real tooth

It took almost a decade to build the Colosseum in Rome, but one social media post claims someone has achieved the same level of detail on a miniature scale.

"Roman Colosseum carved into a real tooth. By Dalton Ghetti," reads the caption accompanying a photo of a tooth with the purported engraving posted on Facebook Dec. 8.

The image, which gathered over 300 shares in one day, isn't the only one online. Similar versions have also been shared on Reddit, Twitter and Pinterest.

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But the two claims in the post – that it's a carving on a real tooth and that it was created by Ghetti – are incorrect. The image was digitally created years ago by a company based in Thailand.

Paste BN reached out to the poster for comment.

Image is a digital creation

The photo being shared online actually shows a digital creation by Illusion, a studio based in Thailand that focuses on computer-generated imagery.

The image was created by the studio as part of an advertisement campaign for Maxam, a company based in Shanghai that manufactures toothpaste, Post Rattanas, who oversaw the project, told Paste BN in an email.

The original image, posted on Illusion's website, includes Maxam's toothpaste logo in the bottom right corner with the slogan: "Don't let germs settle down." 

Rattanas told Paste BN the studio used computer-generated imagery programs, including ZBrush and Modo, to sculpt the tooth and create the texture of the Colosseum.

"No actual tooth or photography was used in any process," Rattanas said.

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Our rating: False

We rate the claim that an image shows the Colosseum carved into a real tooth FALSE, based on our research. The image was created by a company that told Paste BN it used two programs to digitally create the image. The company confirmed no real teeth or photography were involved in the process.

Our fact-check sources:

• History, June 6, 2019, Colosseum
• u/ethanholmes2001, Oct. 31, 2018, Reddit thread
• Museum Archive, Nov. 18, tweet
• Eduardo Paredes H, accessed Dec. 9, post
• Illusion, accessed Dec. 10, About 
• Check your fact, Dec. 3, Fact check: No, this image does not show the Colosseum carved into a real tooth
• Maxam, accessed Dec. 10, About Maxam
• Post Rattanas, Dec. 9, email exchange with Paste BN
• Illusion, accessed Dec. 10, Civilization
• Pixologic, accessed Dec. 10, ZBrush at a glance
• Foundry, accessed Dec. 10, Modo

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Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.