Amarna Warrior Burial

Individual 59 from the South Tombs Cemetery, Tell al-Amarna, Egypt
Having looked at the political role, social position and living conditions of the Amarna royals, our next ‘object’ will take us lower down the social spectrum.

On the edge of the desert at Tell al-Amarna lies a cemetery of shallow burials scooped into the sand, where Amarna’s poorer people were buried in often unmarked graves, with only a few, if any, objects.

One individual buried here, an adult male who died in his later 30s, gives us information about the hard and often violent lives of some of Amarna’s population, and hints at the political and military instability of Amarna-period Egypt.

Reading

For images of the South Tombs Cemetery excavations see:
http://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/excavation/south_tombs_cemetery/

Kemp, B.J., Stevens, A., Dabbs, G.R., Zabecki, M. &Rose, J. C. 2013. Life, death and beyond in Akhenaten’s Egypt: Excavating the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna, Antiquity 87 (335): 64-78

Kemp, B.J. 2012. The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and its People. London: Thames and Hudson,

Dabbs, G. R. &Schaffer, W. C. 2008. ‘Akhenaten’s Warrior? An Assessment of Traumatic Injury at the South Tombs Cemetery’, Paleopathology Newsletter 142: 20-31 [Blackboard Week 5 – pdf]