View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarWorks@UARK University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 12-2019 Death on the Horizon: Osteoethnography of the People of Akhetaten Alissa Michelle Bandy University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Citation Bandy, A. M. (2019). Death on the Horizon: Osteoethnography of the People of Akhetaten. Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3447 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Death on the Horizon: Osteoethnography of the People of Akhetaten A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Alissa Michelle Bandy University of New Mexico Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, 2003 Bournemouth University Master of Science in Forensic and Biological Anthropology, 2009 December 2019 University of Arkansas This Dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _________________________________ Jerome C. Rose, Ph.D. Dissertation Director __________________________________ __________________________________ JoAnn D’Alisera, Ph.D. George Sabo, Ph.D. Committee Member Committee Member Abstract The purpose of this dissertation is to define and implement osteoethnography. Osteoethnography is the analysis and description of an ancient culture through the bioarchaeological and archaeological evidence, utilizing cultural anthropological theories and techniques. An osteoethnographic narrative is presented in this dissertation, which describes the embodied lives of the people of the 18 th Dynasty Egyptian city of Akhetaten, now known as Amarna, founded in 1355 B.C.E. by the Pharaoh Akhenaten. Osteoethnography looks at how people are shaped by and shape their environment, how culture impacts health, and how culture informs the lives of its practioners. Osteoethnography employs life course theory, and the concepts of embodiment and agency. To present a recreation of a culture from the past I utilized skeletal and archaeological data, primary sources from the culture being studied, and secondary sources from scholars who have studied the culture in-depth. Osteoethnography’s purpose is to show the connections between cultures and people, the importance of culture in humanity’s development, and the necessity to respect and preserve the stories of our past to better understand ourselves. ©2019 by Alissa Michelle Bandy All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments I would like to give my deepest appreciation to my Advisor Prof. Jerome C. Rose, you listened to me talk about Dickens, you watched how I worked on the skeletons, and you chose a dissertation topic that excited and challenged me, thank you for believing in me. To my committee members, Prof. D’Alisera and Prof. Sabo, thank you for the books, sources, and advice, they were invaluable. To my friends: Kurt Bodenbender, Heidi Davis, Cheyenne Lewis, Kat Kuckens, Liz, Ashley Shidner, Nicki Smith-Guzman, Amy Warren, Teresa Wilson, Sarah, Kris, Christina, Angela and Jeremiah, April, and McKenzie, Carrie, Chris, Swantje, Scott, Sandy and Tabitha, Kristen, Cherie, Linda, Gary, Robin, Jessi, Brenda, Erin, Heather, Vita, Niala, thank you for listening and giving support and advice. Thank you for keeping my laughter and hope alive. To my family: My mother Shelly Sherman, who always loved and believed in me, you made me a better writer and a better person, to my father H. Charles Bandy for your love, support and stories, you shaped my humor and my heart. To my stepmother Joyce, you are a loving and kind soul. To my Aunt Ilene ‘Skeeter’ Valtierra, you magnificent, wild woman, never change. To my Uncle Frank Valtierra, you have an amazing quiet strength and wondrous dependability that has been a blessing to our family. To Damon and Zoe and B.Damon, Kaella, Aubri, Hunter, Crissy, Annette, Danny, Tory, Jacob, Rachel, Tina, Melissa, Steve, Alec, Trey ‘T- Rex’, Aunt Betty, Uncle Windy, Danielle, Uncle Ray and Aunt Trudy, Aunt Cassie and Uncle Ken, Uncle Bob, Aunt Shirley and Uncle Phil, Shawn, Jeff, Kenny, Maria, Eric and all the Bandys and Seigos, thank you for your love and support. To my beloved sisters, you mean the world to me, you are what is best in my heart and my soul: Sarah Sovey, Kelly Sovey, Danielle Bandy, and Kindra Bandy, you are stars and angels. To my nieces and nephews: Emma, you dazzling girl, Reine, remarkable and awe- inspiring, Skye, creative, kind, lion-hearted, Harrison, clever and sharp, CB, exuberant and untamed, and Spencer, little angel. To the MST3K crew, you kept me somewhat sane. To Prof. Barry Kemp, Ms. Miriam Bertram, and Dr. Anna Stevens for you amazing knowledge of Akhetaten and the people who built it. For all the lovely people I met in Egypt: Reham, Tamer, Zeinab, Afaf, Mohammed Omar, and all the kind and lovely people who help at the Amarna dig house. To Dr. Barbara Mertz, aka Elizabeth Peters, aka Barbara Michaels, you inspired me and instilled within me a deep and abiding love for books and ancient Egypt. To the people of Akhetaten, your stories matter, I write about you because of my admiration and respect, may you dwell happy in the Duat with plenty of food, beer, and good things to supply you for all eternity. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Theoretical Premises 15 Chapter 3: Methodology 43 Chapter 4: Osteoethnography 52 Chapter 5: Conclusion 192 Bibliography 204 Appendix A 222 Appendix B 227 Appendix C 241 Appendix D 369 Appendix E 380 Appendix F 398 Appendix G 400 1 Chapter One: Introduction In this dissertation I will create, define, and apply the concept of osteoethnography. Osteoethnography is meant to act as a tool for bioarchaeologists to employ the information collected from skeletons, in conjunction with primary and secondary cultural sources, to observe, portray, and hypothesize about life in past cultures. The people and the culture of the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten will be considered in order to produce an example of an osteoethnography as a way to explore a unique site and elucidate the life-ways of those who constructed and inhabited the city. Social bioarchaeology is a branch of anthropology that is focused on learning how to decipher the way human culture has been inscribed on the skeleton over the course of a person’s life. The human body is a genetically designed tabula rasa that is sculpted by culture, ecology, and the individual’s unique life experience. The main goal of bioarchaeologists’ work is to demonstrate that “biology and culture… are dialectically intertwined” (Zuckerman and Armelagoes, 2011: 20). Humans change and are changed by their environment, culture can imprint itself upon the skeleton, and social interactions can be recorded in the bones making the human skeleton an invaluable resource for understanding the past. Each human being who has ever existed, no matter how long or short their life, has a story that matters and deserves to be remembered and respected. It can often be difficult to capture the essence of those stories, to appreciate the scope and complexity of an embodied existence, with current methods of academic and scientific writing. Bioarchaeologists and archaeologists have begun experimenting with presentation, looking for a style of writing that will resonate with both academic and nonacademic readers while engaging the audience’s empathy, creating dialogs, and exploring 2 how the past can inform our present and future. Osteoethnography evolved from the term osteobiography, which was defined by: “Saul in 1989…[he wanted] the interpretation of human skeletons to illuminate a wide gamut of life conditions and events… the emphasis… upon illustrating the composite lives of the general population… a more humanistic, perhaps experiential study of skeletal remains, augmenting the clinical and social scientific traditions which have dominated osteology…[Osteobiography is the] study through human skeletons of the biography as a cultural narrative” (Robb, 2002: 160). Saul’s version of osteobiography was a new methodological approach that, by today’s standards, would be considered more of a bioarchaeological overview of population rates of sex, age, paleopathology and trauma, and biological distance; a combination of population statistics punctuated with information on some individual skeletons that stood as examples of the information he was disseminating. During the rise of the ‘new archaeology/physical anthropology’ movement, osteological analysis was redirected to explaining or describing “major biocultural trends in human adaptation… as the contribution to understanding big questions about the evolution of our species, such as the impact of agriculture” (Stoddar & Palkovich, 2012: 2). In the process, individuals, particularly ones with data that caused them to be ‘outliers’, were being overlooked or omitted from reports, to avoid skewing the results. In response, some bioarchaeologists adapted the concept of osteobiography to create a way to engage in comprehensive examinations and accounts of specific individuals: “with rare, severe,