• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Millsaps College Department of Sociology and Anthropology World Dispatch We’re building a bigger, better alumni community. E-mail your updates to Spring [email protected]. Include your name, graduation year and everything what 2009 you’ve been up to and you’ll be included in the next edition of the newsletter. Become a part of the alumni network (www.millsapssoan.ning.com) and connect directly In this issue: with your former classmates. Chocolate Moreton Lecture Moreton series brings Series in the Sci- mummies to life at Millsaps expert sweet- ences updates Early February held the last In her lecture, Corthals ex- ens history installment of Millsaps College’s plained how the discovery of Recent Millsaps Moreton Lecture Series in the Egyptian mummies has helped Sciences, Dr. Angélique Cor- forensic anthropologists, archae- grad wins Ful- thals of State University of New ologists, and Egyptologists dis- bright, spends York at Stony Brook presented cover previously unknown influ- time in Albania her lecture entitled, “Forensic ences such as disease, landscape, Anthropology: Gone, But Not and climate change on ancient Departed.” She focused on her Egyptian culture. Contributed photo Millsaps profes- involvement in an ongoing proj- Dr. Angélique Corthals is a fo- Dr. W. Jeffrey Hurst ect in which she excavated and rensic anthropologist, using his- The next installment sor to present at investigated Hatshepsut and torical, medical, anthropological, in the acclaimed More- SfAA conference other royal mummies in Egypt. forensic and genetic approaches ton Lecture Series at Mill- The project was featured both to reveal information about an- saps College, scheduled on the Discovery Channel and in cient biological remains. She is for Thursday, April 16 at W.M. Keck grant an IMAX documentary in 2007. able to combine disciplines to 7 p.m., will feature Dr. funds new lab Many consider her a leading ex- gain a well-rounded understand- W. Jeffrey Hurst of Her- pert on mummies and decipher- ing of ancient civilizations in the shey Co. in Hershey, PA. ing degraded DNA. wake of environmental change, Hurst specializes in ana- Millsaps offers Hatshepsut, who ruled in the specifically in climate fluctua- lytical chemistry, food unique language 15th century BCE, is thought to tions. science and spectroscopy, have been the greatest female Her main focus involves infec- all amounting to a set of class in Swahili ruler in Egypt. tious disease in the past, present, skills that are helping him and future. In her research, Cor- reconstruct the history of E-mail corrections to thals uses DNA-based ecological chocolate. newsletter editor Ben and epidemiological models to In a recent archaeo- McNair at mcnaijb@ recreate the environmental risks logical excavation at a millsaps.edu. of infectious disease. site dated to 1,000 years Since 2000, Corthals has been ago a number of ceramic The Alumni Newsletter involved with projects ranging jars were found among is published bi-annu- from fresh water fish sampling remains at Pueblo Bonito ally by the Millsaps to analyzing social and geo- in the Chaco Canyon re- College Department of graphical factors contributing to gion of New Mexico. This Sociology and Anthro- the malaria epidemic. She has is evidence that chocolate pology, once in the worked with the American Mu- appeared north of Mexi- spring and once in the seum of Natural History on nu- co earlier than originally fall. merous occasions and has had a thought, and infers trade hand in the production several between Chaco Canyon large exhibits, including a 2006 residents and cacao grow- exhibit featuring “Copperman,” ers in Central America. a 7th-century Chilean mummy. The discovery came Contributed photo Check out Dr. Angélique Cor- as Hurst tested residue Dr. Angélique Corthals thals at www.aspcorthals.net. Chocolate continued, page 2 THE What motivated Hatshepsut to rule ancient Egypt KINGas a man while her stepson stood in the shadows? HERHer mummy, and her true story, have come to light. SELF By Chip Brown Photographs by Kenneth Garrett here was something strangely many centuries she had spent in a limestone cave. touching about her fingertips. It was hard to square this prostrate thing with the Everywhere else about her per- great ruler who lived so long ago and of whom it son all human grace had van- was written, “To look upon her was more beau- ished. The raveled linen around tiful than anything.” T e only human touch was Ther neck looked like a fashion statement gone in the bone shine of her nailless f ngertips where horribly awry. Her mouth, with the upper lip the mummif ed f esh had shrunk back, creating shelved over the lower, was a gruesome crimp. the illusion of a manicure and evoking not just (She came from a famous lineage of overbites.) our primordial vanity but our tenuous intima- Her eye sockets were packed with blind black cies, our brief and passing feel for the world. resin, her nostrils unbecomingly plugged with T e discovery of Hatshepsut’s lost mummy tight rolls of cloth. Her lef ear had sunk into the made headlines two summers ago, but the full f esh on the side of her skull, and her head was story unfolded slowly, in increments, a forensic almost completely without hair. drama more along the lines of CSI than Raid- I leaned toward the open display case in ers of the Lost Ark. Indeed the search for Hat- Cairo’s Egyptian Museum and gazed at what in shepsut showed the extent to which the trowels all likelihood is the body of the female pharaoh and brushes of archaeology’s traditional toolbox Abandoning the queenly attire of a regent, Hatshepsut, the extraordinary woman who ruled have been supplemented by CT scanners and Hatshepsut came to adopt the classic regalia Egypt from 1479 to 1458 B.C. and is famous to- DNA gradient thermocyclers. of a king. At lef , she wears the royal headcloth day less for her reign during the golden age of In 1903 the renowned archaeologist Howard of the pharaoh, yet sof ly rounded breasts and Egypt’s 18th dynasty than for having the audacity Carter had found Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus in a delicate chin subtly suggest her female gender. to portray herself as a man. T ere was no beguil- the 20th tomb discovered in the Valley of the As a sphinx (above), she displays the unmistak- ing myrrh perfume in the air, only some sharp Kings—KV20. The sarcophagus, one of three ably male symbols of a lion’s mane and a and sour smell that seemed minted during the Hatshepsut had prepared, was empty. Scholars pharaoh’s false beard. national geographic • april LATE EARLY OLD FIRST MIDDLE SECOND NEW THIRD INTERMEDIATE LATE GRECO-ROMAN PERIOD PREDYNASTIC DYNASTIC KINGDOM INTERMEDIATE KINGDOM INTERMEDIATE KINGDOM PERIOD PERIOD CA 332 B.C. – A.D. 395 PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD circa ca 2950 B.C. ca 2575 B.C. ca 2125 B.C. ca 1975 B.C. ca 1630 B.C. ca 1539 B.C. ca 1075 B.C. ca 715 B.C. 332 B.C. 3100 B.C. Ramses II Aha (Menes) Djoser KhufuNitokerty Mentuhotep II Senusret III Sobeknefru Tutankhamun Tawosret Taharqa Cleopatra VII ca 2175 B.C. ca 1760 B.C. – 1755 B.C. ca 1198 B.C. – 1190 B.C. (ruled as a queen) WOMEN WHO RULED AS KINGS HATSHEPSUT A pharaoh was meant to be both man and god, ca 1479 B.C. – 1473 B.C. but a few women broke with that tradition. Only Regent for Thutmose III Hatshepsut enjoyed a long, prosperous reign, ca 1473 B.C. – 1458 B.C. Royal cartouche taking her place among notable male pharaohs. Pharaoh and co-ruler of the pharaoh with Thutmose III Hatshepsut Female pharaohs in red did not know where her mummy was or whether still be lying alone in the dark, her royal name HATSHEPSUT’S FAMILY TREE Hatshepsut was born, Egyptian power was it had even survived the campaign to eradicate and status unacknowledged. Today she is en- The female pharaoh’s mother, Ahmose, is believed to waxing. Her possible grandfather Ahmose, have been a king’s daughter, which gave Hatshepsut a the record of her rule during the reign of her co- shrined in one of the two Royal Mummy Rooms unique advantage. Her father, Thutmose I, had no royal founder of the 18th dynasty, had driven out the regent and ultimate successor, Thutmose III, at the Egyptian Museum, with plaques in Ara- blood. Hatshepsut may have used her status to seize formidable Hyksos invaders who had occupied when almost all the images of her as king were bic and English proclaiming her to be Hatshep- power after her stepson inherited the throne. the northern part of the Nile Valley for two systematically chiseled of temples, monuments, sut, the King Herself, reunited at long last with centuries. When Ahmose’s son Amenhotep I and obelisks. The search that seems to have her extended family of fellow New Kingdom Sitkamose Ahmose Ahmose- did not produce a son who lived to succeed him, f nally solved the mystery was launched in 2005 pharaohs. Nefertari a redoubtable general known as T utmose is be- by Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Mummy lieved to have been brought into the royal line Project and secretary general of the Supreme iven the oblivion that befell Hatshep- Other siblings since he had married a princess. Council of Antiquities. Hawass and a team of sut, it’s hard to think of a pharaoh Hatshepsut was the oldest daughter of T ut- scientists zeroed in on a mummy they called whose hopes of being remembered are Amenhotep I Ahmose- mose and his Great Royal Wife, Queen Ahmose, G Meryetamun KV60a, which had been discovered more than a more poignant.

Load more

  59

Copy Link