| Abusir el-Meleq Mummies Human Mummy | |
| |
| Biographical Information | |
|---|---|
| Name(s) | Unknown |
| Age | varied |
| Sex | both |
| Status | varied |
| Height | varied |
| Source | |
| Culture | Egyptian |
| Date(s) | 1400 BC to AD 400 |
| Site | Abusir el-Meleq |
| Current Location | |
| Location | University of Tübingen and the Felix von Luschan Skull Collection, Museum of Prehistory of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
| Catalog # | |
Abusir el-Meleq was an ancient city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo. In 1,500 BC, a cemetery was founded there. The mummies discovered there range in age from 2,000 to 3,000 years old. 151 mummified remains from Abusir el-Meleq were sampled in order to test if the incursion from Greek, Nubian, or other foreign powers had left a genetic imprint on the ancient Egyptian population. The conclusions of the testing suggest that the invading peoples from Sub-Saharan Africa and Rome did not significantly intermix with the ancient Egyptians.
Mummification[]
Standard mummification practices of the the age and culture.These were not pharaohs or elite Egyptians buried in elaborate stone sarcophagi, but rather ordinary, "middle class" people buried in simple painted wood coffins.
Studies[]
Researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History sampled the mummified human remains from Abusir el-Meleq. The samples were subjected to a new DNA sequencing technique that allowed the team to successfully recover full genome-wide data sets from three individuals and mitochondria genomes from 90 individuals in order to test if the incursion from Alexander the Great or other foreign powers had left a genetic imprint on the ancient Egyptian Semitic population. The findings indicated Egyptians did not undergo any major shifts during the 1,300 year time span studied. Ancient Egyptians were closely related to Anatolian and Neolithic European populations, as well showing strong genetic traces from the Levant areas such as Turkey and Lebanon.
Facial reconstructions
Three of the mummy's faces, have been reconstructed using genetic data extracted from the remains. It was the first time such a technique has been used on human DNA of that age. The three men came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo, and are estimated to have died some time between 1380 BC and AD 425. Their genetic makeup was closer to that of modern individuals in the Mediterranean or the Middle East than it is to modern Egyptians
External Links[]
https://newatlas.com/ancient-egyptian-mummy-dna-study/49792/
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694
https://www.livescience.com/ancient-egyptian-mummies-faces-reconstructed-dna