<\/p>\n
\n\tA new study, published<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0American Journal of Archaeology<\/em>, aims to show that the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten was abandoned not because of a plague, as many have previously assumed, but for different reasons entirely.<\/p>\n \n\tAkhetaten, or present-day Amarna, was founded during the reign of Akhenaten, who was known as Amonhotep IV and who worshiped the sun god Aten. His new royal residence and the capital of the Egyptian kingdom was only occupied for about 20 years until it was abandoned not long after the pharaoh\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \n\tIt has long been thought that the quick decline and mysterious abandonment of the city was due to an epidemic that was also cited in textual sources. Hittite plague prayers, for example, claimed that Egyptian war captives brought an epidemic to its empire. Letters from Amarna additionally indicate a disease outbreak in Meggido, Byblos, and Sumur. However, none of these sources specifically named an epidemic in Akhetaten.<\/p>\n \n\tResearchers Gretchen Dabbs and Anna Stevens looked to the cemeteries surrounding the Akhetaten, including four used for the general public: the South Tombs, the North Cliffs, North Desert, and North Tombs Cemeteries, containing between 11,350 and 12,950 burials. A total of 889 interments from excavations conducted between 2005 and 2022 were used in the study.<\/p>\n \n\tThe\u00a0remains\u00a0indicate such stress markers as low adult stature, spinal trauma, linear enamel hypoplasia, and degenerative joint disease, all connected to economic and social hardship. While seven individuals were found to have tuberculosis, other disease was rare among the recovered remains.<\/p>\n \n\tMost bodies were not embalmed and were found with various grave goods, textiles, and mat coffins. Burial positions did not appear to have been done hastily, as would be expected in an epidemic. Paleodemographic modeling also indicated that the number of burials fell within expected range.<\/p>\n \n\tThe city also seems to have been systematically abandoned. It seems that it was even occupied after Akhenaten\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEgyptological sources provide lots of different connections between Amarna and scary words like \u2018plague\u2019 and\/or epidemic. Multiple Amarna Letters mention plague. The Hittite Plague Prayers connect an extreme mortality\/disease event with the Egyptians. Members of the Royal family died at Amarna. Amenhotep III built a lot of statues to Sekhmet, a goddess of disease and pestilence in ancient Egypt,\u201d Dabbs told Phys.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt creates this network of circumstantial evidence that links Amarna and Akhenaten\/the Royal family with\u00a0disease\u00a0from, largely, textual records written in and about other places and\/or times\u2026 Once the seed of that connection was planted, it became a \u2018fact\u2019 through repetition,\u201d Dabbs added.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new study, published\u00a0in the\u00a0American Journal of Archaeology, aims to show that the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten was abandoned not because of a plague, as many have previously assumed, but for different reasons entirely. Akhetaten, or present-day Amarna, was founded during the reign of Akhenaten, who was known as Amonhotep IV and who worshiped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 11:19:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}