4,000-year-old handprint found on ancient Egyptian tomb
Researchers from Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam Museum, in the United Kingdom, stumbled upon the imprint while preparing for an exhibition, which is set to open this fall.
It was found on the base of a 'soul house,' a building-shaped clay model typically found in burials and said to have provided a place for the soul to live, according to a press release from the museum.
The model has an open space at the front where food offerings, like bread, lettuce or an ox's head, could be placed.
Dating back to about 2055–1650 BCE, the soul house underwent extensive examinations that revealed how it was made four millennia ago.
It showed that the unnamed potter would have first created a framework of wooden sticks for the two-story building, which was then coated with clay. The firing process would have burnt the wood away.
The handprint was found underneath the soul house and was most likely formed when the potter moved the model while the clay was still damp and before it was fired in a kiln.
'We've spotted traces of fingerprints left in wet varnish or on a coffin in the decoration, but it is rare and exciting to find a complete handprint underneath this soul house,' said Helen Strudwick, senior Egyptologist at the museum and curator of the exhibition.
'This was left by the maker who touched it before the clay dried,' she said in the release. 'I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before. You can just imagine the person who made this, picking it up to move it out of the workshop to dry before firing.'
'Things like this take you directly to the moment when the object was made and to the person who made it, which is the focus of our exhibition,' Strudwick added.
Vast amounts of pottery have survived from the ancient Egyptian period as ceramics were widely used for functional objects and decorative pieces. It was common for pottery containing food and drink to feature in burials.
While much is known about ancient Egyptian rulers like Tutankhamun, the stories of those who made some of the many artifacts discovered in their tombs is often overlooked.
The ready availability of clay and low value of pottery is likely to have affected social status of potters, according to the museum.
The soul house will be on display at the Cambridge museum as part of the 'Made in Ancient Egypt' exhibition, which aims to highlight the stories of artisans like the one who left this handprint behind. It opens on October 3.
Discover your world
Go beyond the headlines and explore the latest scientific achievements and fascinating discoveries. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gizmodo
11 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Impossibly Intricate Tattoos Found on 2,000-Year-Old ‘Ice Mummy'
For the first time, archeologists have gotten a detailed look at the intricate tattoos on a 2,000-year-old ice mummy, found buried deep within the permafrost-covered mountains of Siberia. These tattoos would be challenging to produce even today, the researchers say, suggesting that ancient tattoo artists possessed a considerable degree of skill. With help from modern tattoo artists, an international team of researchers examined the mummy's tattoos in unprecedented detail and identified the tools and techniques that ancient societies may have used to create body art. The findings were published in the journal Antiquity. Like it is now, getting inked up was a common practice in prehistoric societies. Studying the practice is tough, however, because skin is rarely preserved in archaeological remains. The 'ice-mummies' of the Altai mountains, in Siberia, are a notable exception—they were buried in chambers now encased in permafrost, sometimes preserving the skin of those within. The Pazyryk people were horse-riding nomads who lived between China and Europe. 'The tattoos of the Pazyryk culture—Iron Age pastoralists of the Altai Mountains—have long intrigued archaeologists due to their elaborate figural designs', Gino Caspar, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Bern, said in an emailed statement. Scientists haven't been able to study these tattoos in great detail, due to limitations in imaging techniques. Many of these tattoos are invisible to the naked eye, meaning scientists didn't know they were there when the mummies were initially excavated in the 1940s. Researchers need infrared imaging to visualize ancient tattoos because skin degrades over time, and the colors of the tattoos fade and bleed into the surrounding skin, making them faint or invisible to the naked eye. Infrared light, with its longer wavelengths compared to visible light, penetrates deeper into the skin and reveals what lies beneath the surface. So, until now, most studies were based on drawings of the tattoos, rather than direct images. But advances in imaging technology have finally allowed researchers to take high-resolution images of the mummies and their tattoos. The researchers used high-resolution digital near-infrared photography to create a 3D scan of the tattoos on a 50-year-old woman from the Iron Age age, whose preserved remains are housed at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Artistic renderings of the newly discovered tattoos reveal detailed tattoos of leopards, stags, roosters, and a mythical half-lion, half-eagle creature. The researchers found that, like with many modern-day humans, the tattoos on the mummy's right arm are much more detailed and technical than those on the left. This suggests that the two different ancient tattooers, or the same tattooer after they beefed up their skills, were responsible. The scans also suggest that the artists used several tools—with one or multiple points—and that the tattoos were completed over multiple sessions. This suggests that tattooing was not just a form of decoration in Pazyryk culture but a skilled craft that required building skills and technical ability. Many other individuals were buried at the same site, indicating that tattooing was likely a common practice. 'The study offers a new way to recognize personal agency in prehistoric body modification practices,' Caspari said in a statement. 'Tattooing emerges not merely as symbolic decoration but as a specialized craft—one that demanded technical skill, aesthetic sensitivity, and formal training or apprenticeship.'
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Wall Street Journal
The Growing Buzz Around Ancestral Wines
In the rolling hills of Valencia in Spain, winemaker Pablo Calatayud has joined forces with scientists and archaeologists to mount a small viticultural revolution—one that reaches back to pre-Roman times to recreate what have become known as ancestral wines. At his Celler del Roure, Calatayud is using large, egg-shaped clay amphorae to make wine pressed from grapes native to the region. The process is reconstructed from old texts and drawings carved into archaeological finds across the Mediterranean, including an ancient Iberian settlement that overlooks his own vineyard.
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Gizmodo
Bronze Age Humans Got High on Psychoactive Betel Nuts
Long before Ethiopian monks in the 9th century discovered that coffee tree fruit helped them stay awake during evening prayer (according to legend, anyway), communities in Southeast Asia have been chewing betel nuts—the seeds of the areca palm and a stimulant that heightens people's alertness, energy, euphoria, and relaxation—since antiquity. But new research indicates that betel nut chewing has been practiced for even longer. By studying ancient dental plaque from Bronze Age individuals in Thailand, an international team of researchers suggests that people were consuming the stimulant 4,000 years ago. This novel approach paves the way for future investigations of ancient behaviors in the absence of traditional archaeological evidence. 'We identified plant derivatives in dental calculus from a 4,000-year-old burial at Nong Ratchawat, Thailand,' Piyawit Moonkham, an anthropological archaeologist at Chiang Mai University and first author of the study published yesterday in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, said in a statement. Dental calculus, also called tartar, is hardened dental plaque. 'This is the earliest direct biomolecular evidence of betel nut use in south-east Asia.' Moonkham and colleagues analyzed 36 dental calculus samples from six individuals from Nong Ratchawat, a Bronze Age archaeological site in central Thailand. The team also produced their own betel liquid samples to investigate the interactions between ingredients and make sure their analysis could accurately detect the psychoactive compounds. 'We used dried betel nut, pink limestone paste, Piper betel leaves, and sometimes Senegalia catechu bark and tobacco. We ground the ingredients with human saliva to replicate authentic chewing conditions,' Moonkham explained. 'Sourcing materials and experimentally 'chewing' betel nuts to create authentic quid samples was both a fun and interesting process.' A betel quid is a chewing mixture consisting of the areca nut and other ingredients, such as those listed above. It's worth mentioning that a heavy use of betel nuts can eventually lead to health risks such as oral cancers and heart disease. Ancient Egyptians Mixed Psychedelics, Bodily Fluids, and Alcohol for Rituals, Scientists Confirm The team's analysis revealed traces of arecoline and arecaidine in three of the samples, all from the same individual—organic compounds present in betel nuts as well as coffee, tea, and tobacco, which can have a significant impact on a person's physiology. In other words, betel chewing has likely existed for at least 4,000 years. 'In essence, we've developed a way to make the invisible visible—revealing behaviors and practices that have been lost to time for 4,000 years,' said Shannon Tushingham, senior author of the study and associate curator of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, 'the presence of betel nut compounds in dental calculus does suggest repeated consumption, as these residues become incorporated into mineralized plaque deposits over time through regular exposure.' While consistent betel juice chewing usually stains teeth, the researchers did not identify any such staining. They suggest that this could be due to different consumption methods, ancient teeth cleaning practices, or processes that prevented the stains from lasting over 4,000 years. They also didn't find any evidence indicating that the individual's burial was special compared to the others—evidence that, presumably, might have provided insight into why the individual consumed betel nuts. 'Psychoactive, medicinal, and ceremonial plants are often dismissed as drugs, but they represent millennia of cultural knowledge, spiritual practice, and community identity,' Moonkham concluded. 'Archaeological evidence can inform contemporary discussions by honoring the deep cultural heritage behind these practices.'
