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Posted on 12/08/2006 5:21:36 PM PST by blam
Posted on Fri, Dec. 08, 2006
A new picture of ancient ethnic diversity
By Tom Avril
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(MCT)
PHILADELPHIA - Scholars have long believed that ancient Egypt was a genetic stew of ethnicity, as the fabled kingdom was both a center of international trade and often the victim of foreign invasions.
Now, new evidence suggests that may have been true even in the upper echelons of society, according to researchers who have used a blend of art and science to re-create what the ancients looked like in real life.
They have used CAT scans to model the skulls of seven mummies from various museums, including one unveiled last month at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences, revealing physical features that range from Mediterranean to African.
All seven were buried with the trappings of a high status in society, including two clearly connected to the priesthood, said project leader Jonathan Elias, director of the Harrisburg, Pa.-based Akhmim Mummy Research Consortium.
He cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from such a small sample, and he stressed that ethnic traits were a small part of his research. But he said the findings suggested a society where race had little to do with class.
"They all identified themselves as Egyptians," Elias said. "These are people. You can't slice them up like they're chocolate cake or vanilla cake."
Philadelphia sculptor Frank Bender has created plaster busts from five of the seven skull models, including one of the anonymous young woman - dubbed Annie - whose 2,200-year-old remains are on display at the Philadelphia academy.
Bender sculpted her with a nose and cheekbones that Elias described as "northern Mediterranean" - the location of modern-day Greece and Turkey. Another one of the five has what Elias called "Sudanese" features: full lips and a "prognathous" profile - meaning the jaw protrudes farther than the nose. The others have a blend of ethnic facial characteristics.
Anthropologists who have heard Elias speak about the work have been impressed.
"In the past, Egyptology has been very much based on architecture and artifacts and text," said Robert Yohe, an anthropologist at California State University, Bakersfield. "You got reconstructions of culture based on things and people's impressions of things."
Now, he said, mummy reconstructions provide more direct information about the ancient people: their role and status in society, their physical health, and sometimes even how they died.
Such efforts are not of much value on an individual basis but are provocative when done for a series of mummies from a particular place and time, said Andrew Nelson, an anthropologist from the University of Western Ontario.
"There were people sloshing up from Africa and around the Mediterranean and all over the place," Nelson said. "I think it's extremely interesting to see that reflected in the face."
Eventually, Elias hopes to scan more than 20 mummies, most from the Ptolemaic period, an intriguing span of three centuries during which Egypt came under Macedonian and Greek influence.
It began after Alexander the Great invaded Egypt in 332 B.C. Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals and also a boyhood friend, named himself king in 305 B.C.
One of his successors was dubbed Ptolemy Philadelphus - "brotherly love," like the city of Philadelphia - because he married his sister.
Much remains unknown about the period. Few U.S. scholars specialize in it, in part because it is a transitional period that requires a fair bit of interdisciplinary skill, said J.G. Manning, who teaches classics at Stanford University.
The Greeks left much of Egyptian society and customs intact, including its polytheistic religion. They even drew parallels between certain Greek gods and their Egyptian counterparts. The period saw flourishing international trade, wider use of coins, and prolific accomplishments in the sciences and literature.
"In a lot of ways, it's the beginning of the modern world," Manning said.
Yet ancient texts indicate there was political unrest and even rebellion, some centered in Akhmim, the burial site for the mummies that Elias hopes to study. The city is in southern Egypt and was a major center for textiles and trade; reasons for the unrest under the Ptolemaic kings are not fully understood.
The unveiling of the academy mummy head comes as Philadelphia immerses itself in Egyptology. Treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun go on display at the Franklin Institute on Feb. 3. At the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, there is a new exhibit of artifacts from Amarna, the Egyptian city where Tut spent his childhood.
The academy has no firm plans yet on how to display Annie's bust.
The mummy project is unusual in that Elias, its director, is not affiliated with a university.
He founded his research consortium in 2005 in Harrisburg, Pa., where he once worked at the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts. Project members include various universities and museums with Akhmimic mummies in their collections.
"He's a very engaging guy," Nelson said. "You have to have someone like that for this sort of project, to pull everyone together."
The work on the academy mummy began in April, when caretakers carefully drove it to Hahnemann University Hospital, using a makeshift stretcher wrapped in bubble wrap. A radiologist scanned the body with computed tomography - a CAT scan.
The images were then used to create a three-dimensional model of the skull at the University of Manitoba. A special 3-D printer was used to build up the model layer by layer, by spraying a mixture of plaster dust and a special polymer.
Then, Bender went to work.
Better known for helping law-enforcement agencies by sculpting the heads of missing persons, Bender relished the mummy project and even visited Egypt for inspiration.
He has sculpted five heads to date, marveling as history comes to life in his hands. He sculpted the Academy's anonymous mummy with flowing hair and a mouth opened as about to speak.
"She was beautiful," Bender said. "She was full of life, vibrant."
Another of the mummies conjures up a different sort of feeling, at least for Elias, the project director. Inscriptions on his coffin identify him as Djedhor, a heavy-set fellow whose remains are stored in France.
"He actually looks a great deal like my father-in-law," Elias quipped. "I try to get past that."
GGG Ping.
Where's the picture?
The Russians and Soviets, too, though that could be unpopular here.
Where's the photo?
And the Mongols.
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This article reminded me of the Negroid stone bust discovered in, as I remember, Mayan ruins. We know so little of the ancients travels, especially to the Americas.
Yeah. They're not nearly light and fluffy enough.
Olmec (not Mayan).
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This study covers the Ptolemaic period, very late in Egyptian history. By then the population was mixed. The early, classic Egyptians were more uniform racially, as is clearly shown in the tomb paintings.
Most authorities agree that the ancient Egyptians were most like the modern Copts of Egypt, who are a minority submerged in a sea of Arabs, who are relative newcomers.
This study covers the Ptolemaic period, very late in Egyptian history. By then the population was mixed. The early, classic Egyptians were more uniform racially, as is clearly shown in the tomb paintings.
Most authorities agree that the ancient Egyptians were most like the modern Copts of Egypt, who are a minority submerged in a sea of Arabs, who are relative newcomers.
Yours is the most accurate comment so far.
Thanks. I knew that!
The Egyptian Empire was a center of learning and arts that attracted learned people from all over the area. I would expect that the higher classes would be mixed sooner than the lower, so it may not really give a good picture of Egyptian civilization in the Ptolemaic period.
I happen to think that mixed races are beautifull and smarter. Though I'm biased, I think genetic selection simply has more options to choose from.
Just another tile in the rich tapestry of cultural diversity.
Statue found in Olmec ruins (Put a skull-cap on this guy)
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