Ancient Egypt went through a period of major change between 4,500-4,800 years ago. The country’s Early Dynastic period was transitioning into the Old Kingdom period.
This saw advances that allowed expert builders in Cairo to construct what would become the Great Pyramid of Giza. It also saw mature hieroglyphic writing and the emergence of the pottery wheel.
South of Cairo, in a village called Nuwayrat, one man lived a hard life as a potter, even with the new technology. But, fortunately, when he died, his body was placed in a ceramic pot and buried in a tomb cut into a hillside, allowing UK-based researchers to analyze his remains, genetically.
Their study, published in the journal Nature, describes the first whole ancient Egyptian genome, and the oldest DNA sample from Egypt to date.
“This individual lived and died during a critical period of change in Ancient Egypt,” said Linus Girdland Flink, a biomolecular archeologist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, and co-senior author on the study.
Flink and colleagues have revealed how the potter lived and died, and his genetic ancestry. They know he stood 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) tall, had brown eyes, brown hair, and lived to be as old as 64 years.
“We’ve been able to tell part of the individual’s story, finding that some of his ancestry came from the Fertile Crescent, highlighting a mixing of groups [from North Africa and the Middle East] at this time,” said Fink.
The Fertile Crescent was where the first agricultural communities of the Middle East and Mediterranean basin are thought to have settled. It was a crescent-shaped region that spanned modern day Syria, southeastern Turkey, and Iraq.
While it is difficult to draw broad conclusions from a single individual, “this groundbreaking article provides a first glimpse into the genetics of early Egypt, a region that has long been a critical gap in the ancient DNA map,” said Iosif Lazaridis, a geneticist at Harvard University, US, who was not involved in the study.
Life of an ancient Egyptian potter was hard
The researchers first analyzed the man’s skeleton with a variety of techniques to find clues about his life.
Using radiocarbon dating, they confirmed he lived at some point between 2,855-2,570 BCE, a time overlapping the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods.
They ran a chemical analysis of the man’s teeth to learn about his diet. The results suggested the individual had likely grown up in Egypt.
And markings on the skeleton itself gave clues that he could have worked as a potter. His seat bones were expanded in size, his arms showed evidence of extensive movement back and forth, and there’s substantial arthritis, only in his right foot.
“Though circumstantial, these clues point towards pottery, including use of a pottery wheel, which arrived in Egypt around the same time,” said Joel Irish, an archaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and co-author of the study.
But his higher-class burial was unusual for a potter of that time. “Perhaps he was exceptionally skilled or successful to advance his social status,” Irish said.
Genetic history of Ancient Egypt now feasible
Scientists have sequenced the DNA of Egyptian mummies before, but these individuals lived during the late intermediate period after 1,400 BCE. The potter is thought to be at least 1,000 years older.
“We had no ancient Egyptian DNA. This [study] is a completely new genetic analysis of someone from the old Kingdom,” said Harald Ringbauer, a population geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who was not involved in the study.
“A major problem with previous attempts was that samples were mummified, which contaminates DNA. Here, with a normal burial, the DNA was well-preserved. This makes it special,” Ringbauer told DW.
Extracting DNA from the man’s tooth, the researchers sequenced the man’s whole genome. Analysis showed that 80% of his ancestry was related to ancient individuals who lived in North Africa. The remaining 20% of his ancestry was traced to people who lived in the Fertile Crescent, particularly Mesopotamia.
“It’s a big open question: when people with Levantine ancestry, who brought farming from the Fertile Crescent, came to Egypt. The authors speculate the Levantine ancestry came relatively late, so this study is the first major step to answering this question,” said Ringbauer.
Genetic evidence suggesting that people moved into Egypt and mixed with local populations at this time was previously only visible in archaeological findings. But researchers lack diversity in genome sequencing, and Ringbauer said that was still a problem.
“We don’t have any ancient DNA to compare this sample to, so we don’t know how much of their ancestry is local,” said Ringbauer.
The authors say their study shows it’s possible to provide strong genetic evidence of the movements of people in Egypt during the Bronze Age.
Lazaridis agreed the study marked an advance in recovering DNA from ancient Egyptians. “For the first time, the genetic history of Ancient Egypt can truly begin to be written,” he said.
In future work, the research team hopes to build a bigger picture of migration and ancestry in collaboration with Egyptian researchers.