129: Amarna, the Hard-Knock Life

Child labour, plague, and dark deeds at Amarna. By regnal year 14 (c.1349 BCE) Akhenaten's capital city had grown to almost thirty thousand people. This massive growth carried a price, one that archaeologists are finding in the city's vast cemeteries...

• Date c.1349 BCE.
• Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com.
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• Music by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.com
• Music by Ancient Lyric www.bettinajoydeguzman.com

Select Bibliography:

• Dabbs, Gretchen R. ‘Bioarchaeology of the Non-Elite North Tombs Cemetery at Amarna: A Preliminary Assessment of the Non-Elite Individuals of the North Tombs Cemetery at Tell El-Amarna, Egypt’. Bioarchaeology International 3, no. 3 (2019): 174–86. https://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2019.1012.
• Dabbs, Gretchen R. ‘Human Bones from the South Tombs Cemetery: The 2013 Study Season’, 2013. https://www.amarnaproject.com/documents/pdf/STC-2013-bioarchaeology.pdf.
• Dodson, Aidan. Amarna Sunrise: Egypt From Golden Age to Age of Heresy. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2014.
• Egypt Exploration Society Website. ‘The Northern Cemeteries of Amarna’, 2018. https://www.ees.ac.uk/the-northern-cemeteries-of-amarna.
• Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. 3rd Revised Edition. London: Routledge, 2018.
• Kemp, Barry J. ‘Tell El-Amarna, 2016’. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 102 (2016): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.2307/26379068.
• Kemp, Barry J.  The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People. First paperback edition. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014.
• Kemp, Barry, Anna Stevens, Gretchen R. Dabbs, Melissa Zabecki, and Jerome C. Rose. ‘Life, Death and Beyond in Akhenaten’s Egypt: Excavating the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna’. Antiquity 87, no. 335 (2013): 64–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00048626.
• Kuckens, Kathleen. ‘The Children of Amarna: Disease and Famine in the Time of Akhenaten’. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2013. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/888.
• Panagiotakopulu, Eva. ‘Pharaonic Egypt and the Origins of Plague’. Journal of Biogeography 31, no. 2 (2004): 269–75. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0305-0270.2003.01009.x.
• Shidner, Ashley. ‘Growing Up in Tell El-Amarna: An Examination of Growth and Non-Specific Stress Indicators in New Kingdom Children’. University of Arkansas, 2018.
• Stevens, Anna. ‘Death and the City: The Cemeteries of Amarna in Their Urban Context’ 28, no. 1 (2018): 103–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000592.
• Amarna Project website, ‘The South Tombs Cemetery’, 2013. https://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/excavation/south_tombs_cemetery/2013.shtml.
• Zakrzewski, Sonia R. ‘Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121, no. 3 (1 July 2003): 219–29. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.10223.

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