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March 2, 2007
The Hardest Workers at Amarna
I ran across an abnormally interesting paper by Jerome C. Rose on the paleopathology of the commoners at Tell Amarna. By a strange coincidence, Rose called his paper "Paleopathology of the commoners at Tell Amarna, Egypt, Akhenaten's capital city."
Much of Near Eastern archaeology, like much of history, is the story of kings and wars but studies of everyday life are becoming more common. By analyzing skeletal remains, this paper looks at the life of "commoners" at Amarna.
Here is the abstract:
The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten initiated worship of a single god and established a new capital city (Tell Amarna) that was built and occupied only once from 1350-1330 BCE. This single short occupation offers a unique opportunity to study a short time period. The royal tombs have long been known and studied, but the location of graves for the common inhabitants has been an archaeological puzzle for more than 50 years. Recently four cemeteries have been located and the analysis of commingled bones from the South Tombs cemetery is presented here. The remains yield the following demographic profile: 53 adults with 19 females and 18 males; 14 juveniles between the ages of 5 and 17; and 3 infants. Arthritis and degenerative joint disease of the spine and joints indicates that DJD was not excessive. Only 2 to 8% of the adult population exhibits arthritis. There are 3 healed fractures of the arm (2 to 8% of the adult sample). There is 1 healed compressed fracture of the skull suggesting violence. The adult infection rate is between 2 and 8% with 3 healed and 1 active case of periostitis and no severe infections. Anemia is implicated by 23% of adult frontals exhibiting cribra orbitalia. Life for the common residents of Amarna appears to not have been as good as initially postulated.
And here is the last paragraph:
In conclusion, the South Tomb bones from Amarna suggest that life was sufficiently stressful to increase juvenile mortality; the work loads high enough to result in spinal and limb trauma; and the diet not sufficiently adequate to resolve the problem of anemia.
Among the things I found most interesting in this paper was the possibility that infants were under represented among the population of those buried in the cemetery. Rose, 76, speculates that the small bones did not survive or where never buried there. I don't have a better answer but I did find the question interesting.
Via ABZU
Reference
Posted by Duane Smith at March 2, 2007 7:31 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
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