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Evidence of hard work from the Amarna cemetery
The carved reliefs on the walls of Egyptian city of Amarna describe an oasis of abundance: fattening cattle, warehouses full of wheat and fish, musicians who play for the Pharaoh’s feast.
But the latest research cast a light on the true life inquietanta to Amarna: a difficult combination of hard work and desire, at least for ordinary people carrying water, unloaded the boats on the Nile and built the great temples of stone, erected by order of Akhenaten, the “heretic pharaoh”.
Researchers who have studied the remains of people buried in the common cemetery have found that many children were stunted and malnourished children, while adults show signs of exhausting work and high rates of injury associated with trauma. “We found the skeletons more sick and stressed that have ever been discovered so far in Egypt,” said Jerome Rose, bioarcheologo of the University of Arkansas who conducted the research. “Amarna was the capital of the Empire. The food would be plentiful … There is something back “.
Amarna was built almost from scratch in the sands of the desert, in 1350 BC, Akhenaton, husband of the famous Queen Nefertiti and likely Tutankhamun’s father. Akhenaten reformed the pantheon of Egyptian gods in favor of the worship of one God, Aten, the Sun God. Built approximately 322 kilometers south of Cairo, Amarna was designed as a place where Aton could reign supreme.
Of about 20-30,000 people who lived at Amarna during his heyday – about 15 years – about ten percent was part of a wealthy elite who lived in spacious villas and was buried in ornate tombs. All other people ended up instead in what today is known as the graveyard of the “Tombs of the South”, simple and cramped graves marked by piles of stones.
Secrets from the tombs
In the latest issue of the journal Antiquity, scholars of the Amarna Project describe the excavation of more than 200 tombs, of which only 20 were found to contain the sarcophagi. Most of the skeletons were wrapped in simple mats, an abnormal signal of poverty for a company that considers the sarcophagi a symbol of social prestige. One of the few sarcophagi found in the cemetery is decorated with obscure hieroglyphs, suggesting that the decorator – and maybe the same customer-were illiterate.
The tombs are found not even the typical affluent burial goods. The common people of Amarna couldn’t afford much, but the simplicity of their burials might also indicate that funerary objects were becoming less important, said archaeologist Anna Stevens, Deputy Director of the excavations. Among the few objects found in tombs there are three beads in the shape of a hippopotamus, probably worn as protective amulets by a woman or a child before he died.
It seems that children of Amarna they need many cures: according to research by Kathleen Kuckens, University of Arkansas, the skeletons belonging to individuals between the ages of 3 and 25 years show signs of scurvy and rickets. Kuckens refers that children’s teeth were furrowed, a clear sign of malnutrition. Preliminary data collected by another scholar, Ashley ShidneI, indicate that children aged over 8 years to show serious signs of stunted. Probably they were well fed and were subjected to high levels of physical activity. “The skeletons of children show signs of a constant use of the muscles,” said Shidner.
And adults certainly wasn’t better. More than 75 percent of studied skeletons show signs of arthritis and back limbs, obvious clue of heavy work. Fractures and collapsed vertebrae were common, and as much as 67 percent of individuals brings signs of at least a fracture healed or healing. These rates are “very high and indicate a high workload,” explained Jessica Kaiser, osteoarcheologa of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, a team that has been excavating in the area of the Giza pyramids.
Heavy workloads
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Amarna was built using a special technique involving the use of a standard block of stone, known as talatat, weighing about 70 kg and deemed suitable to be carried by one worker. A carved scene, that probably originated at Amarna, shows a man holding a talatat balanced on his shoulders with both hands. Perhaps, the researchers speculate, raise these blocks might have contributed to the high degree of arthritis found among workers of Amarna.
Not all experts think, however, that the workload of the Amarna was outstanding workers. Even the skeletons from the necropolis of Saqqara reveal high rates of trauma and heavy work, said Andrew Chamberlain, bioarcheologo at the University of Manchester. Rose replied that, despite not having been able to analyze the data for all demographic groups Egyptian, there are certainly many people who have lower levels of stress related to work loads than the inhabitants of Amarna.
After Akhenaten’s death in 1336 BC, Amarna was quickly abandoned, but its Necropolis survives to testify faraone’s ambition that he hoped to build a “House of Joy” for the Sun God.
“Amarna was supposed to be the great city of prosperity for all,” said Shidner. “But in fact was not the happy place envisioned by Akhenaten”.
