Publication details
Human skeletal remains
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The funerary monument of a high Memphite official was discovered by a joint expedition of the Leiden museum of Antiquities and Leiden University in 2001. The tomb studied here belonged to an 18th Dynasty high priest at the temple of Aten in Memphis named Meryneith and his wife. Substantial skeletal remains from burials were discovered in the underground shafts and mummy chambers of Meryneth´s tomb. Skeletal remains found were incomplete; there were rather isolated bones. Moreover, the medical-anthropological analysis has established the existence of frequent joins between fragments from various areas, so that the skeletal remains found could only be studied and evaluated as „charnel-house material“. Anthropological processing of skeletal material consists of the paleodemographic part, the actual anthropological processing with metrical and morphological analysis, and the paleopathological part. In total, skeletal remains of about 387 individuals were found in Shaft Complexes I an II, comprising 302 adults and 85 children. Male skeletons prevailed in almost all the investigated burial chambers. The most common age at death for women was estimated between 20-30 years, while the age at death for men was mainly between 40-50 years. Pathological changes were found from nearly all main categories of diseases except for malignant tumours. The most frequently occurring paleopathological condition of the spine was diagnosed as deforming spondylosis. Almost all found fractures tended to heal well. A relatively high frequency of dental cysts has been found in permanent dentitions. All obtained knowledge forms an information source for the comparison of demographic and anthropometrical data of similar Egyptian burial-grounds. |