Two juvenile skeletons lie with their heads at opposite ends at the North Tombs Cemetery at Egypt's Amarna site. (Mary Shepperson/Courtesy of The Amarna Project)
Posted on 02/05/2018 9:24:05 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Archaeologist Mary Shepperson, who previously dug with the Amarna Project, reported in The Guardian this week on the discovery of "the simple desert graves of the ordinary Egyptians who lived and worked in Akhenaten's city and never got to leave."
"They paint a picture of poverty, hard work, poor diet, ill-health, frequent injury and relatively early death," ...
"As we started to get the first skeletons out of the ground it was immediately clear that the burials were even simpler than at the South Tombs Cemetery, with almost no grave goods provided for the dead and only rough matting used to wrap the bodies," ...
"As the season progressed, an even weirder trend started to become clear to the excavators. Almost all the skeletons we exhumed were immature; children, teenagers and young adults, but we weren't really finding any infants or older adults... This certainly was unusual and not a little bit creepy," ...
Initial analysis concluded that the remains were of youths aged 7-25, the bulk of whom are thought to have been under 15 when they died. Additionally, wrote Shepperson, the majority of 15- to 25-year-olds had suffered some kind of traumatic injury, and 16 percent of the under-15-year-olds were found to have spinal fractures and other injuries usually associated with heavy workloads...
The physical trauma, the proliferation of multiple burials in a single grave, and the lack of grave goods buried with them all indicate the children were of extremely low status or slaves. Who they were, however, remains a mystery.
"Corvée-style labor, enforced and unpaid, was frequently used in ancient Egypt on major projects," wrote Shepperson, opening up the possibility of them being either Egyptians or the progeny of non-Egyptian slaves.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
Two juvenile skeletons lie with their heads at opposite ends at the North Tombs Cemetery at Egypt's Amarna site. (Mary Shepperson/Courtesy of The Amarna Project)
Life was cheap and even young people were used up until they died. Sad.
I thought it was well-established that the Egyptians used slaves.
& so they are
But to the politically correct and historically ignorant, there is only one period of slavery that ever existed.
“I thought it was well-established that the Egyptians used slaves.”
True, but the Amarna period gets this weird pass as some brilliant, idealistic, humanitarian age of enlightenment by moderns. It always struck me as a period with a bit of interesting artistic creativity, but marred by decadence, weakness and an embrace of the sickly. Sort of like the post WWII West. A veneer over the same old grind though, as proven here. There is nothing new under the sun.
For some interesting modern impressions derived from this period see:
‘The Egyptian’, by Mika Waltari (historical novel)
and
‘Akhnaten’, by Philip Glass (modern opera)
Both moving, and these grim finds make the works even more poignant in the folly of that reign.
Poor kids. The bones cry out.
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
Verily.
You are correct sir, even though we know it’s all BS. How I hate PC. Let me count the ways. 👍
if it was not for technology slavery would return today with most of those who claim that it is evil demanding it as long as they were not the slaves.. its just a sad truth that technology dictates the level of most peoples morality.
I don’t know, there were no power tools or heavy machinery in 1865. It was mainly Christian values that ended slavery in America, beginning with the Underground Railroad. When some refer to slavery being in the Bible, that was nothing like what you see in most parts of the world. Even in ancient Greece, not too far from ancient Israel, slaves had no rights at all. In ancient Israel slavery was mostly by choice, and there were rules governing fair treatment and a path to freedom.
And keep in mind that a Christian started the Abolitionist movement: an English reverend named William Wilberforce, in 1773.
Why does the article call this “Biblical Egypt?” I thought the graves from the time of the Exodus were found by Manfred Bietak, at Tel ed-Daba (Avaris), about thirty years ago.
Yes, but it was capitalism that ultimately destroyed slavery by making it uneconomic. Capitalism created the surplus wealth that allowed for the end of slavery, the end of child labor, the five day work week and the 8 hour work day. Thanks to capitalism we worry about obesity instead of famine. Destroy capitalism, which so many fools wish to do, and all the bad things of the pre-capitalist world will quickly return.
Oh, that's what you meant over there (points toward another website)... Bietak claimed Tel ed-Daba was Avaris, based on nothin' much. The residential structures are of a type more familiar in the Near East (Egypt being part of Africa). As far as its being ancient Avaris, there's no textual records at the site, and the ancient world seemed to not put much effort into "welcome to such-and-so city" signs. :^)
Bietak's been firm against those who would jack the timeline even longer based on the supposed supereruption of Thera, which is an admirable stance.
There's a politically motivated claim that ancient Egypt had no slaves, and it's possible to get afoul of the antiquities authority if you don't tow that line. The claim is ridiculous of course.
The only sustainable economy is one based on surplus, rather than on five year plans and regulations for the sake of regulations.
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