By
Marie-Astrid Calmettes, Egyptologist
Jessica Kaiser, Osteologist
and Brian V. Hunt
Jessica Kaiser, Osteologist
and Brian V. Hunt
More than 2,500 years ago, a very ill young woman died and was buried at
the already long-abandoned site of the city of the pyramid builders at Giza.
Her grave goods included an amulet of an obscure goddess that suggests the
woman may not have been from the Giza area.
Not only that, but she may not have been of Egyptian descent.
GPMP’s primary investigation at Giza is the 4th dynasty settlement of the
pyramid builders. In one quarter of our dig site, however, we’re faced with the
reality that hundreds of Late Period (747-525 BC) burials and a few Old Kingdom
(2575-2134 BC) burials cover the site above the 4th dynasty levels. We cannot
investigate the older levels without first carefully excavating, recording, and
removing the Late Period burials.
At the end of the 4th Dynasty, the pyramid builders abandoned their city to
the desert sands, as the 5th Dynasty kings moved the workers to Abusir and
Saqqara. Two millennia later, the ancient Egyptians began using the site of the
former Giza workmen’s village to bury their dead. The first of these were
interred on a slope along the western edge of our dig site.
An ill youth
In 2005, GPMP osteo-archaeologists Jessica Kaiser and Tom Westlin uncovered
11 burials in this area of the Late Period cemetery. Recovered ceramics suggest
the burials date to the 25th Dynasty, earlier than other Late Period burials at
our site.
One of the richest interments of this group, burial 407, was that of a
young woman of about 16 to 20 years old. Analysis by GPMP osteologists showed
that she suffered health problems during her short life. Lines in her tooth
enamel (enamel hypoplasia) suggest that she was seriously ill during
tooth formation in childhood. She survived this illness, but severe pitting in
the roofs of her eye sockets (Cribra orbitalia) indicate she probably
suffered from iron-deficiency anemia at the time of her death.
Finally, marks on the bones around the ear canals of this young woman (mastoiditis)
point to a severe ear infection. This may have been what killed her, since
deaths due to ear-infection complications were not uncommon before the
introduction of antibiotics.
A non-Egyptian burial?
Although this is clearly an Egyptian interment with Egyptian burial goods,
our craniometrical analysis of the woman implies that she may have been of
Central European descent rather than Egyptian. If the amulet suggests the girl
had a connection with the Delta city of Mendes (more below), that may be the
link with Central Europe, as the Delta had immigrant colonies in the Late
Period.
Because of the poor preservation of many of the Late Period skeletons, only
a few skulls allowed craniometric analysis. The range of natural variation in
the skeletal population is therefore unknown. However, our analysis is based on
the vast database in FORDISC 2.0, which also includes both Egyptian (Saite) and
Sub-Saharan crania, and burial 407 did not match either of those groups.
Hatmehyt: a sacred connection
to Mendes
The woman in burial 407 was interred with a collar made of beads and a
faience amulet, about 13 cm high, to protect her in the afterlife. Initially we
thought the amulet represented Isis, a very powerful and important
mother-goddess of late Egyptian history.
Although the hieroglyphs carved into the amulet are difficult to read and
cannot be used to identify the goddess, she wears a headdress topped by a fish.
The fish is a key indicator of Hatmehyt, a goddess known as “Foremost of the
fishes.”
Hatmehyt was a local deity, native to Mendes in the 16th nome of Lower
Egypt. The goddess is often shown seated on a throne with a fish headdress and
occasionally crisscrossed with incised lines, perhaps to indicate water. On our
amulet, the tail of the fish was long, going down the back of the goddess’ head
and then curling back up to create a loop for attaching the amulet to the
necklace.
Occasionally Hatmehyt is depicted solely as a fish, like the amulets in the
British Museum described by Egyptologist W.M. Flinders Petrie. But her identity
is more secure when she takes the form of a woman with a fish headdress, as is
the case with our specimen.
Why Hatmehyt?
Very little is known about Hatmehyt. She seems to have been a minor
goddess, important in Mendes but perhaps not beyond it. Her earliest documented
appearance is in the 21st Dynasty, but she may date from earlier periods.
Her epithet “Foremost of the fishes” is known from the Old Kingdom in the
geographical processions with rows of nome deities offering the products of
their nome to the gods. But the name “Hatmehyt” is not known before the
Ramesside period.
Dr. Richard Redding, our faunal analyst, identified the fish on our amulet
as a Schilbe (probably Schilbe mystus, the more northerly of that
Nile species), the sacred fish of Mendes.
Hatmehyt may have been selected for inclusion in this burial for a couple
of reasons. The Schilbe was said to be in front of other fish; that is, it goes
faster and may jump over the water surface. The dead would have to cross the
waters of the underworld on their journey to the afterlife and the amulet would
offer protection.
In some texts, a fish helped search for parts of Osiris’ body after he was
dismembered in the myth of Osiris and Seth. Osiris, of course, was an important
deity whom the deceased would meet at the conclusion of her journey through the
underworld.
Conclusion
The sacred and profane history of the site of the ancient Giza settlement
is richly varied. Although abandoned after the construction of the pyramids,
the site apparently retained some sacred association, as the site was not
reused until the Late Period Egyptians established their cemetery there. The
Late Period burials are teaching us more about the burial practices of that
time and adding an important chapter to the history of the site. Once in a
while, we are rewarded with something special, like the poignant grave of an
ill young woman, protected by a goddess obscure to us but important to her.
Marie-Astrid Calmettes is an Egyptologist and
has worked with GPMP since 2004. She teaches Egyptian religion in Kheops
Institute in Paris and she is working on a Ph.D at Université Libre de
Bruxelles, Belgium.
Jessica Kaiser has been a GPMP osteologist since
2000 and GPMP osteology team leader since 2002. She is currently working on her
Ph.D in Egyptian Archaeology at the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley.
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