Skeleton found in pot is first ancient Egyptian to undergo whole genome analysis | Genetics
A man whose bones have been shaped by a forced work life over 4,500 years ago has become the first former Egyptian to have his genetic code read and analyzed by scientists read and analyzed.
The skeleton of the man, who lived at the dawn of the age of the pyramids, was found in 1902 in a pottery ship sealed in a tomb -cut naked, 165 miles south of Cairo, and has been held in a museum since.
Its DNA was remarkably well preserved given its age and the warm climate, which quickly degrades biological equipment. Scientists suspect that the unusual nature of the burial may have helped DNA to survive in the last four millennia.
“It is exciting that we can obtain genomes from this place and that time,” said Pontus Skoglund, who heads the former genomic laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “It is only an individual, but he offers a precious first overview in the ancestry of the beginning of Egyptian in the ancient kingdom.”
The skeleton was given to the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology and later transferred to the World City Museum. There he survived the bombing during the blitz which destroyed almost all the other human remains in the collection.
According to the dating to the radiocarbon, the man lived a few centuries after the unification of upper and lower Egypt, a critical moment of transition between the early dynastic period and the ancient kingdom, which lasted the third to the sixth dynasties. The ancient kingdom, also known as the pyramid age, was marked by significant progress, including the construction of the first pyramid in Saqqara.
The DNA of one of the man’s teeth revealed that he had dark skin, brown eyes and hair, and North African Neolithic ancestry mixed with a 20% genetic contribution from the region of the fertile crescent in the Middle East. The conclusion supports the archaeological evidence of ancient trade between the two regions.
Man’s bones throw light more on his story. Average age, perhaps in the sixties, he was old for the time and riddled with arthritis. The marks on the skeleton suggest that he spent long periods sit on a hard ground with his legs and his arms extended and go down. His right foot has revealed unusual signs of wear.
After studying the tomb paintings of former Egyptian workers, the researchers suspect that he was perhaps a similar potter or craftsman. Potter’s wheel was introduced in Egypt from the fertile croissant in about 2,500 billion and was often stabilized with a foot. But the high -class burial, which took place before Egypt kisses artificial mummification, would have been unusual for such a worker.
Joel Irish, professor of anthropology and archeology at John Moores University of Liverpool, said about all the professions that the team examined, the bone marks were the most consistent with that man was a potter, but he could have been wearing baskets or doing other work on the ground.
Irish said: “It is interesting to note that the man was found in a pot. This is in itself strange. It was put in a relatively high class tomb and no elderly person finds himself in a cut tomb.
Skoglund said that the work, published in Nature, shed light on which the graves could house well -preserved remains to produce large amounts of DNA.
The team now plans to examine more skeletons in the British collections to paint a more complete picture of the genetic history of the Egyptians. “There will be more individuals that we can get DNA and we can use it to build an old public genetic file in ancient Egypt,” he said.
