Salmonella:The Amarna Plague

[Frater0082]

There is a lot of mystery surrounding the plague that ravaged around Amarna and killed so many of its youth, including Princess Meketaten. There has been speculation that the disease was airborne, but I disagree.

On the flip side, in other words, my side of the story, it was a foodborne illness and it was likely Salmonella. From the stories told by Ankh and Mery(Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten) there were grapes growing in Amarna, as to how?, I don't know but they were there. Unfortunately, for Mek and some other youths, she ate some really bad grapes.

There was a depiction of Meketaten eating some grapes while her mother was talking to someone. Well, that was the day when she collapsed to the floor. Granted the time frame that they were in and there were no antibiotics to fight of the germs and bacteria its my opinion that she died on SALMONELLA. she must have suffered for a few days(possibly a week) before she died. It had to have been some nasty few days.

I imagine her vomiting and highly under the care of her wet nurse and female attendants. She had to be sweating intensely in her last days he body must have been trying to sweat out the virus. At her age, i imagine that her body couldn't handle the sickness and she passed away, the same for the other younglings. I believe that Meketaten died somewhere between fall and winter perhaps as early as August.

After this(according to Ankh and Mery) papa had all the grape trees burned down and there were a lot off them too. they all were put in a pile and burned so that no one would die of the disease.

To me, it makes more sense that the plague that ravaged around Amarna was Salmonella. Those kids didn't die from bad air or otherwise everyone would've died. There had to have been something that the children were eating that was killing majority of the young people of that time and I believe Salmonella was it.

I've eaten bad food twice one time and i believe i had Salmonella. The pain was very excruciating the first time I couldn't get out of my bad I lied in that bed for an entire day not moving a muscle. the second time I got sick I laid in the bed for almost weeks only getting up to vomit and use the bathroom. It hurted me to even move. I just laid there sweating the whole thing out of my body. Then on top of that, i had a hemorrhoid it hurt so bad to even take a crap, God I thought I was dying. One time, my roommates took me to the store and I couldn't walk, it was so bad that I had to use a cane to walk around but it hurted then.

When we got to the store, i could barely see my vision was fading. my vision was going in and out all i remember saying to my roommates was " I can't. see." Finally, i was taken to the doctor and they told me I had a virus but i never took the meds that they inscribed for me, I simply drank some juices and got back together on my own, but I know that the virus is still in my system. All, i know is that while I lied there sick I imagine how suffered from her ailments. poor girl my she rest in peace.

[Dusak]

You may have a point Frater0082. There are still many hundreds of salmonella poisoning incidents running rife every month in this country, albeit they are only mild cases due to the lack of temperature in which food is kept, the customs of not wasting anything so plenty of re-warm ups. Bad practices in the food retail businesses and what have you. And of course in our modern times salmonella is more easily diagnosed and treated, unlike then. I had a mild attack some twenty years ago, would not like to suffer from it again.

[Frater0082]

I think it also may have something to do with the desert area too