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This face image is one of the wooden coffins in Tombos. | Credit: With the kind assistance of the Tombos Archaeological Project
The pyramids of ancient Egypt and Sudan may not have been only for the rich, according to the funerals found on the archaeological site of Tombos in Sudan.
“Our discoveries suggest that the tombs of the pyramids, which were once considered to be the last place to rest the most elite, may have also included low-level employees,” archaeologists wrote in a document published in the June issue of The Essue of the The theme Anthropological Archeology MagazineS Ancient Egypt controlled parts of Sudan at times and Tombos was created as an Egyptian colony.
Tombos is located in the third cataract of the Nile River in Sudan. In ancient times, this area was known as Nubia or Kush. After the ingestion of the Egyptians in the region around 1400 BC, they created Tombos. “Shortly after the Egyptian conquest of Nubia, Tombos was built by the Egyptians in what was Nubian territory to facilitate colonial control,” the study team wrote.
Wealthy individuals were buried in tombs with small pyramids at their top. In a new study, scientists examined about 110 skeletons in Tombos. They analyzed where the muscles and connections (which had long since broken down), attached to the bone – proxy, which shows how many working people they did.
“Because the body is used more frequently and more intensively, the muscles and ligaments require a stronger way of attachment,” the study team wrote. “This can lead to various combs and ridges of bone at the point of affection.”
These bone shifts are known as Entheal changes. The team has announced that people who have a low percentage of change in enteria are probably high -status persons who have worked in bureaucracy and are not difficult. But the tombs also kept the remains of people who had a high percentage of enteric changes and, by presumption, did a lot of hard work.
In other words, the pyramids were not only for the rich; Lower-class workers were buried with the elite, suggested the study authors. The pyramids were previously thought to have been built for elite members of society.
close -up of a ceramic face on a lid of an ark
The face cover of a ceramic casket in Tombos.
Egyptian human figurine
This Shabthi is buried in the tomb of the clerk. Shabthis was thought to be working for the deceased in the beyond.
This finding suggests that “the social classes were not segregated, and instead, that hard labor is not eeltin is buried with an elite, which avoids tasks that led to enteerable wear,” the study team wrote. “We can no longer assume that the people buried in the grandiose [pyramid] The tombs are the elite. In fact, the most difficult working members of the communities are related to the most visible monuments. “
There are several possible explanations why non -Elite individuals were buried in the tombs of the pyramids, the first study said Sarah ShraderAssistant Professor of Archeology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
“This practice can be encouraged by elite individuals to strengthen a hierarchical social order,” Schrader told Live Science in an email. “It is also possible that people with a smaller social economic status wanted to be buried to people of higher economic status.”
Research co -author Stuart Tyson SmithProfessor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Live Science in an email that “our thinking is that the elites are surrounded by the non -elites who have worked in some capacity for them, effectively reproducing the social order with their funerals in and around their funeral monuments.” The less wealthy people “may have hoped to take advantage of associations with their employers in terms of status, magical protection and funeral cult,” Smith said.
Although the work focuses only on Sudan, Shrader said that elite and non -elite individuals were buried together in pyramid tombs in Egypt, although more research needs to be done to understand this.
Part of the archaeological site of Tombos, including some of the funerals with small pyramids on their surfaces. | Credit: With the kind assistance of the Tombos Archaeological Project
The answers to the findings were mixed. Julia bootProfessor of Egyptian Archeology and History of Arts in Munich Ludwig-Maximilland University, praised the study, saying live science in email that “overall, this is a great study that will affect the future interpretations of new and old excavations and data.”
However, Aidan DodsonProfessor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol in the UK said we should approach these discoveries cautiously. He noted that the members of the elite may also have committed to tasks involving hard work, so those with the accumulated muscles may actually belong to the upper class.
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“The fact that Tombos is a colonial advance can especially mean that the elite has military and physical training,” Dodson told Live Science in an email.
It is important to note that the pyramids in Tombos are different from those of Giza or Saqqaranoted Wolfram GrajetzkiEgyptologist and Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London. The pyramids in these places are built for Pharaohs and their queens, while the Tombos pyramids are built for unbroken individuals.