The medical biology of the early Egyptian populations from Asswan, Assyut and Gebelen

Abstract

A survey on the palaeopathology of the ancient Egyptian skeletal collection at the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Turin is described. A series of 1300 skulls and 650 skeletons of dynastic period and 59 skeletons of Pre-dynastic period was examined. The source of the osteo-archeological material, consisting of male and female skeletons of adults and children, excavated from sites at Assyut, Gebelen and Asswan is outlined. The exceptionally well preserved state and documentation of the material in the collection is noted. The method of investigation is reported. The results of the survey are described. The frequent difficulties of diagnosis presented particularly by lesions of inflammatory and neoplastic diseases in ancient bones are emphasized and the necessity of establishing more precise patterns of skeletal manifestations and well defined criteria of diagnosis is stressed. The use of X-ray examination proved to be of great value especially in the study of malocclusions of teeth and certain cranial anomalies of unknown aetiology, namely “bilateral symmetrical depressions of the parietal bones” and “cribra orbitalia and cribra cranii”; further detailed studies and research into these ill understood conditions are much needed. The singular example of malignant disease in the Turin collection is described in a skeleton of the Ptolemaic period excavated at Assyut; the differential diagnosis of the multiple lesions of the malignant tumour is discussed. Emphasis is laid on the congenital abnormalities, important because of their genetic and biological significance in comparative studies with data from other early populations and, in consequence, because these hereditary anomalies might throw light on the spread and prevalence of marker genes in antiquity. Although the statistics of this survey of such a relatively small and isolated sample should be considered with caution, the importance of the epidemiological approach to human palaeopathology in the right context is stressed; that is the comparative study of disease processes in different ancient populations. Correspondingly in the comparison of the medical biology of early populations, an attempt should be made to collect not only all the palaeopathological data and demographic analyses of ancient populations, but also to correlate these findings with certain environmental data and documented stratification reports supplied by the archaeologists and the historians. In this way, when all this comparative statistical data can be incorporated with other epidemiological surveys it may be possible to investigate the origin and geographical migration of certain diseases through time.