Paleopathology of the commoners at Tell Amarna, Egypt, Akhenaten's capital city

Abstract

The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten initiated worship of a single god and established a new capital city (Tell Amarna) Key words: paleopathology -ancient diseases -diseases in antiquity -human remains Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt, instituted worship of a single god to replace the traditional complex pantheon. In 1350 BCE he founded a new capital, now known as Tell Amarna, located between the previous capitals of Memphis (near Cairo) in the north and Thebes (modern Luxor) in the south (Kemp 1991). This city was created on previously unused land along the Nile and was occupied for approximately 20 years, when it was then abandoned upon Akhenaten's death. Amarna is unique among cities of the ancient world because it did not develop over a long period of time with one building cutting into the one previous, but was planned and built upon vacant land and occupied by approximately 30,000 people for less than 20 years.The tombs of the nobles were either left unfinished or were emptied and the contents moved to the traditional burial locations across the river from Thebes. Although excavated since 1892 no cemeteries of the middle class or workers have been found. Repeated searches have failed to find the bones of the estimated 6000 dead (Griffith 1923) until recently. A cemetery located along the wadi adjacent to the South Tombs (high status) was washed out in a past flood leaving the bones and pottery scattered along the surface of the wadi. This event offered the opportunity to examine the skeletal remains of the Amarna lower class inhabitants. The bones were collected along the wadi and its alluvial fan and brought to the on-site laboratory where they were sorted into groups of diagnostic bones and examined for indicators of minimum number of individuals, age and sex, and evidence of disease.The paleopathology of Amarna is interesting because of the unique circumstances of the city and three hypotheses are tested. First, having been built on new land and occupied for only a short period of time, contamination of the environment with human waste and parasites should have been minimal and, thus, bacterial infections and parasites should have been infrequent. Second, as a capital city it is expected that food sources should have been at least adequate for all inhabitants. Third, as a city under construction skeletal lesions related to heavy work loads and accidents should have been high. MATERIALS AND METHODSNine numbered tile markers were distributed south (1) to north (9) down the wadi adjacent to the South Tombs area. Tile 1 was situated adjacent to the southern portion of the cemetery located on the east wadi bank and tile 9 was located at the mouth of the wadi. The wadi alluvial fan was designated as the area "west of marker 9". All human bones and ceramic sherds were collected by a walking survey. The collections were marked by location such as between markers 1 and 2.The human bones were cleaned by dry brushing and examined. No differences were observed between bones collected between any of the markers and, thus, f...

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“…On the other hand, the Amarna Egyptians were not "huntergatherers, " but were excavated from the non-elite South Tombs Cemetery and date from 3,300 to 3,280 BP (Rose, 2006). This cemetery is composed of an estimated 5,000 individuals from different occupations and/or socio-economic positions but did not hold elite or royal status (Dabbs et al, 2015).…”