SCURVY, SWEAT AND STUNTED GROWTH
Excavations of one of ancient Egypt’s great cities reveal how the underclass paid for a pharaoh’s indulgences
Standing on the east bank of the Nile, the city of Akhet-aten (today known as Tell el-Amarna) was one of the jewels of Egypt’s late 18th Dynasty. Built in the 14th century BC by the pharaoh Akhenaten as his great capital, where he could give full expression to his devotion to the solar disc, Aten, it was abandoned just a few years after his death in c1336 BC.
We now know there was a darker side to this city of temples and palaces. That’s because excavations of Akhet-aten’s cemeteries in recent years have provided some of the most graphic evidence for the price Egypt’s underclass paid for pharaonic indulgences. Malnutrition was rife, as was scurvy. Stunted growth was common, along with bone and muscle conditions including injury and degenerative joint disease – the latter evident in more than three-quarters of adult bodies. Two-thirds had fractured bones, consequences of accidents and carrying heavy loads during the construction of Akhenaten’s vanity project.
A medical papyrus from the Old Kingdom (c2575–c2130 BC), with its itemised guidance for the examination, diagnosis and treatment of injuries, shows that Egyptian doctors had long been familiar with the physical consequences of such work. And the tomb of Ipuy at Deir el-Medina in western Thebes illustrates the industrial accidents that even befell those making tomb furniture, including eye injuries and damaged limbs.
Many found at Amarna died young. In one study, more than half of the bodies examined were aged 7–14; more than a quarter of these had suffered fractures of some sort. Few of the adults were older than their mid-twenties at death. None were mummified – they lacked the means even for the most basic process.