The Ancient Egyptians and the Natural World: Flora, Fauna, and Science

This book explores the interaction between animals, plants, and humans in ancient Egypt. It draws together different aspects of the bioarchaeology of Egypt: flora, fauna, and human remains. These come from sites throughout the country from Alexandria to Aswan, as well as material from museum basements. The material presented here includes the results of new and previously unpublished excavations in the Delta and Thebes, in-depth studies of different species of animal mummies, an analysis of animal cults, tentative identifications of wild dogs in Egyptian art, a variety of diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered, studies on human remains using traditional as well as state-of-the-art technologies, and the different foods that formed the diet of the ancient Egyptians. The studies blend traditional methodologies, often deployed in novel ways, such as examining the pelage of lions, as well as new 3D technologies used in the analyses of bioarchaeological material. The results of these studies deepen our knowledge of ancient Egypt, its inhabitants, and their interaction with their environment. The present volume is the proceedings of the Conference on the Bioarchaeology of Ancient Egypt & the Second International Symposium on Animals in Ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2019). From the Back Cover This book explores the interaction between animals, plants, and humans in ancient Egypt. It draws together different aspects of the bioarchaeology of Egypt: flora, fauna, and human remains. These come from sites throughout the country from Alexandria to Aswan, as well as material from museum basements. The material presented here includes the results of new and previously unpublished excavations in the Delta and Thebes, in-depth studies of different species of animal mummies, an analysis of animal cults, tentative identifications of wild dogs in Egyptian art, a variety of diseases from which the ancient Egyptians suffered, studies on human remains using traditional as well as state-of-the-art technologies, and the different foods that formed the diet of the ancient Egyptians. The studies blend traditional methodologies, often deployed in novel ways, such as examining the pelage of lions, as well as new 3D technologies used in the analyses of bioarchaeological material. The results of these studies deepen our knowledge of ancient Egypt, its inhabitants, and their interaction with their environment. The present volume is the proceedings of the Conference on the Bioarchaeology of Ancient Egypt & the Second International Symposium on Animals in Ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2019). About the Author Salima Ikram is Distinguished University Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, and has excavated extensively in Egypt as well as in Turkey. She has directed the Animal Mummy Project, the Amenmesse Project (KV10/KV63), the North Kharga Oasis Darb Ain Amur Project, and headed the archaeozoology team at Kinet Hoyuk in Turkey. Jessica Kaiser is a bioarchaeologist currently finalizing her PhD in Human Osteology and Egyptian Archaeology at the University of California Berkeley. She spent ten years as the head osteologist of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project/AERA, where she also taught osteology. She has worked as an archaeologist and human remains specialist in Upper and Middle Egypt, Sweden, and the US. She has published on her work at Giza. Stéphanie Porcier is an Egyptologist and Archeozoologist specializing in the study of animals in ancient Egypt and especially animal mummies. She directs the inter- and multidisciplinary program MAHES (French acronym for Egyptian Animal and Human Mummies) which aims to study the most important collection of animal mummies outside Egypt kept at the Musée des Confluences, Lyon (France). Since 2017, she has conducted research on baboon mummies from the Wadi Gabbanat el-Qurud as part of the Baboon Project. She has published several scientific papers on ani