Finds reveal how ancient Egyptian and Nubian cultures blended

Study shows how excavations in Sudan reveal the transformation of Egyptian and Nubian culture.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA—In a middle-class tomb just east of the Nile River in what was Upper Nubia, a woman offers a glimpse of how two met civilizations met, mingled and a new pharaonic dynasty arose. Her tomb was Egyptian, but she was buried in the Nubian style—placed in a flexed position on her side and resting on a bed. Around her neck she wore amulets of the Egyptian god Bes, the protector of households.

The Nubian woman is, according to Stuart Tyson Smith, a professor of archaeology and chair of the Department of Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, a prime example of "cultural entanglement," the process by which colonizing powers and indigenous people influence one another and change over time.

In a paper published in American Anthropologist, Michele Buzon of Purdue University and Smith explore cultural identity and transformation in the ancient village of Tombos in what is now northern Sudan. "Entanglement and the Formation of Ancient Nubian Napatan State" details the findings from Smith and Buzon's excavations of cemeteries in Tombos, which became an important colonial hub after the Egyptians conquered Nubia around 1500 BCE.

"You get this really interesting entangled culture blending different elements in really different ways, but also there seems to be a lot of individual choice involved," Smith explained. "It's not just a matter of the two cultures mash up and then you get this new hybrid thing that's consistent. There seems to be a lot of individual choice—whether or not you want a Nubian bed and/or an Egyptian coffin and/or to be wrapped like a mummy or whether or not you want an Egyptian-style amulet and/or Nubian ivory jewelry."

Poles discovered a unique 6.5 thousand years old burial in Egypt

Traces of intentional injury in the form of cuts on the femur have been discovered on the remains of one of the dead found during this year's excavations carried out in the Western Desert in Egypt. It is the first known case of such treatment from the Neolithic period in this part of Africa.

Discovery has been made by the expedition led by Prof. Jacek Kabaciński from the Poznań branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS. Polish research area in the desert, called Gebel Ramlah, is located near the southern border of Egypt with Sudan, about 140 km west of Abu Simbel. Poles have been working there since 2009 and making important discoveries from the beginning, including an unusual cemetery of newborns.
 
This year, they discovered a further part of the cemetery and investigated 60 new burials, this time belonging to adults. In the grave marked with number 11, which contained the remains of two dead, one bearing traces of deliberate damage to the body in the form of cuts on the femur - yet such treatments were unknown to scientists who study the Neolithic in North Africa and Eastern Europe. In another grave they discovered the remains of unprecedented in this area tomb structures, consisting of stone slabs which lined the interior of the cavity, in which the deceased had been buried.
 
Another interesting find, according to Prof. Kabaciński, is also the burial of a man whose body, after the burial, was showered with fragments of broken pottery, stone products and lumps of red dye. The remains of the deceased were also unusual - anthropologists noticed the pathology of numerous bones in the form of overgrowth of femoral bone, fractures and abnormal bone adhesions. Above his head archaeologists found a fragment of Dorcas gazelle skull with horns, which probably served as a headdress, worn during a ceremony. Similar finds known from European Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites suggest that it is a grave of a person who performed magical rites, perhaps associated with hunting - the researchers suggest.
 
Research project at Gebel Ramlah is carried out as part of the activities of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition IAE PAS, in collaboration with the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of University of Warsaw. The work is financed by the National Science Centre.
 
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

Source: http://scienceinpoland.pap.pl/en/news/news,405679,poles-discovered-a-unique-65-thousand-years-old-burial-in-egypt.html

Mummies' Height Reveals Incest

By Rossella Lorenzi

The height of the pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt supports historical records that they might have married their sisters and cousins, says new research into 259 mummies.

It's known from historical sources that incestuous marriages were common among the ancient Egyptian royalty. The pharaohs believed they descended from the gods so inbreeding was seen as a way to retain the sacred bloodline.

But it is hard to prove incest in royal marriages through genetic testings because of ethical consideration when destroying mummies' tissues.

Frank Rühli, director of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, and colleagues used a highly hereditable character, body height, to look for evidence of incest in 259 mummies of both commoners and royals.

"It is actually one of the largest collections of body height of ancient Egyptians and spans all major periods of their history," Rühli told Discovery News.

The researchers tested the hypothesis of royal incest by studying variation (difference between individuals) of body heights of royals and comparing it with variations among commoners.

"Pharaohs varied less in height than men of the common population. This is one indicator of inbreeding," Rühli said.

Detailing their results in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Rühli and colleagues noted that the pharaohs were taller than non-royal males from the same time period, while there was little difference between the stature of queens and common Egyptian women.

Ancient Egyptian skeleton shows signs of breast cancer

By Elahe Izadi

Researchers working in Egypt say they have found the oldest example of breast cancer in the 4,200-year-old remains of an Egyptian woman — a discovery that casts further doubt on the common perception of cancer as a modern disease associated with today's lifestyles.

This evidence, reported by the news agency Reuters, comes a year after another team announced its own discovery farther south in the Nile Valley. Those archaeologists had examined a 3,000-year-old skeleton that a Durham University researcher found in modern-day Sudan and said it was the oldest complete example of a human suffering from metastatic cancer.

They published their findings last year in the journal PLoS ONE, writing that cancer's relative absence in the archaeological record had given "rise to the conclusion that the disease is mainly a product of modern living and increased longevity."

The newest ancient example of cancer, discovered by an anthropological team from Spain's University of Jaen, was found in the bones of a woman thought to have been an aristocrat from southern Egypt, Reuters reported.

"The study of her remains shows the typical destructive damage provoked by the extension of a breast cancer as a metastasis," Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty said in a statement on Tuesday, Reuters reported. He added that the woman's bones showed "an extraordinary deterioration."

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war, 13,000 years ago

Scientists are investigating what may be the oldest identified race war 13,000 years after it raged on the fringes of the Sahara.

French scientists working in collaboration with the British Museum have been examining dozens of skeletons, a majority of whom appear to have been killed by archers using flint-tipped arrows.

The bones – from Jebel Sahaba on the east bank of the Nile in northern Sudan – are from victims of the world’s oldest known relatively large-scale human armed conflict.

Over the past two years anthropologists from Bordeaux University have discovered literally dozens of previously undetected arrow impact marks and flint arrow head fragments on and around the bones of the victims.

This is in addition to many arrow heads and impact marks already found embedded in some of the bones during an earlier examination of the skeletons back in the 1960s. The remains – the contents of an entire early cemetery – were found in 1964 by the prominent American archaeologist, Fred Wendorf, but, until the current investigations, had  never been examined using more modern, 21 century, technology.

Some of the skeletal material has just gone on permanent display as part of the British Museum’s new Early Egypt gallery which opens officially today. The bones – from Jebel Sahaba on the east bank of the River Nile in northern Sudan – are from victims of the world’s oldest known relatively large-scale human armed conflict.

Malnutrition, Hunger Plagued Ancient Egyptian Upper Class

A common image of ancient Egyptian royalty depicts an opulent lifestyle of palatial comforts and daily feasts. But new research suggests that high government officials typically suffered from malnutrition and infectious diseases, and that most died before they were 30 years old.

Anthropologists from the Universities of Jaen and Granada analyzed the bones of more than 200 mummies found in a 4,000-year-old tomb near the present-day city of Aswan.

They conclude that the population in general, as well as the highest social class, lived "on the edge of survival." Infant mortality rates were extremely high. The ancient Egyptians faced chronic hunger and suffered severe gastrointestinal disorders due to drinking polluted water from the Nile River. Many of the mummies were young adults between 17 and 25 years of age.

The researchers also found evidence of interbreeding with the black peoples to the south, in what is now Sudan. Inscriptions describe several journeys one of the governors made to central Africa, and note his return from one trip with a pygmy, in what might be the oldest reference to that uniquely short-statured people.

The anthropologists call the necropolis where the tomb is located - Qubbet el-Hawa - one of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/content/malnutrition-hunger-plagued-ancient-egyptian-upper-class/1617790.html