Luxor4u

Did children build the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna?

New evidence from Akhenaten’s capital suggests that a ‘disposable’ workforce of children and teenagers provided much of the labour for the city’s construction

There’s a whiff of magic about the site of Tell el-Amarna that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s partly down to the effort of imagination needed to conjure a great capital of ancient Egypt from the sea of low humps stretching between the cultivation and the desert cliffs, and partly the long shadows cast by its founders – the ‘heretic’ pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti.

A long , and interesting article....and slightly creepy!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... of-armana-

An interesting article, thanks for posting this

Really interesting article Newcastle, and raises all sorts of questions. Thanks very much for posting it.

I remember a program, perhaps it was on the Smithsonian channel, a couple years back, that interviewed a British archeologist on this topic. He also was surprised by the age range of the young people recovered from the site and the high incidence of malnutrition, disease and injury due to heavy lifting.

LuxorFan wrote:I remember a program, perhaps it was on the Smithsonian channel, a couple years back, that interviewed a British archeologist on this topic. He also was surprised by the age range of the young people recovered from the site and the high incidence of malnutrition, disease and injury due to heavy lifting.

It would be interesting if you could find a link to it on Youtube.

I did a cursory search but came up empty. The archeologist interviewed was Barry Kemp.

A couple of interesting related articles:

The study of the bones that has started will in time give a profile of a New Kingdom urban population that will be hard to better. Already it tells a somber story: of hard and short lives, more so than one would have expected from the capital city at the peak of ancient Egypt's prosperity.

http://archive.archaeology.org/online/i ... /kemp.html

Ancient Egyptian Cemetery Holds Proof of Hard Labor.
Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten's capital was no paradise for many adults and children.
By Traci Watson, for National Geographic News

The children of Amarna apparently needed all the protection they could get. Skeletons from those between the ages of 3 and 25 at the time of death show signs of scurvy and rickets, according to research that Kathleen Kuckens, a University of Arkansas student working with Rose, will present at an anthropology meeting in April.

Kuckens will also report that the children's teeth are grooved, a telltale mark of malnutrition. Children older than about 8.5 years showed signs of serious stunting, according to preliminary data that University of Arkansas graduate student Ashley Shidner will also present at the April meeting. It seems likely that those children weren't properly nourished and were engaged in abnormally high levels of physical activity. The children's skeletons show evidence of the constant use of muscles, Shidner said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... nce-world/