In recent years, a focus of the bioarchaeological research at Amarna has been the remains excavated from the cemeteries along the eastern edge of the ancient city boundary (North Cliffs, North Desert, North Tombs, and South Tombs Cemeteries). The sample of human remains from Amarna is one of the largest from ancient Egypt and we can learn a lot from the study of these people, but the nature of the city and its occupation make interpretation complex. While the people buried in each cemetery have somewhat different stories to tell, there is an overarching theme between them. In general, life at Amarna must have been physically difficult. Most people buried here exhibit evidence of nutritional deficiency, disease, and/or heavy labor, often punctuated with traumatic injury resulting in broken bones. These issues began early in life, with some children as young as six years old exhibiting evidence of degenerative joint disease (arthritis). What we don’t know, because there are few contemporary skeletal assemblages of similar composition, is whether these are features unique to life at Amarna, or whether they speak more broadly to life in Egypt at the time.
Gretchen R. Dabbs
Further reading
Dabbs, G.R. 2017. What do you want to look at a bunch of bones for? [A blogpost written to mark the 40th anniversary of work at Amarna]
Dabbs, G. R. 2019. A preliminary assessment of the non-elite individuals of the North Tombs Cemetery at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt. Bioarchaeology International 3(3): 174–186.
Dabbs, G.R. 2023. Menarche at Amarna: Timing and the further implications. American Journal of Biological Anthropology 183(2): e24856 (15 pgs).
Dabbs, G.R. 2023. Differential diagnosis of a calcified object from the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna, Egypt. International Journal of Paleopathology 43:31-36.
Dabbs, G.R., A. Stevens and M. King Wetzel. 2023. A mature ovarian teratoma from New Kingdom Amarna, Egypt. International Journal of Paleopathology 43: 99–105.
Dabbs, G.R, A Stevens, A Merat. 2022. Teasing Identity from burial treatment among the non-elite at Amarna. Horizon 22: 3–6.
Kemp, B.J., Stevens, A.K., Dabbs, G.R., Zabecki, M. and J.C. Rose. 2013. Life, death, and beyond in Akhenaten’s Egypt: Excavating the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna. Antiquity 87(335): 64-78.
Stevens, A., G.R. Dabbs and J.C. Rose. 2016. Akhenaten’s People: Excavating the Lost Cemeteries of Amarna. Current World Archaeology 78:14–21.
See also preliminary reports from 2006 onwards in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
As with any long-term project, our understanding of the lives of the people of Amarna has evolved over time as further excavations and more detailed study of the skeletal remains have provided larger samples and more nuanced interpretations of those data. The early findings of the cemetery project and especially the small datasets on which they were based, should be utilised with caution, as many of the findings have been revised and expanded over time.