Reuters: Study shows life was tough for ancient Egyptians
CAIRO (Reuters) – New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found. …
…Studies on the remains of ordinary ancient Egyptians in a cemetery in Tell el-Amarna showed that many of them suffered from anemia, fractured bones, stunted growth and high juvenile mortality rates, according to professors Barry Kemp and Gerome Rose, who led the research. …
…Rose displayed pictures showing spinal injuries among teenagers, probably because of accidents during construction work to build the city.
The study showed that anemia ran at 74 percent among children and teenagers, and at 44 percent among adults, Rose said. The average height of men was 159 cm (5 feet 2 inches) and 153 cm among women.
"Adult heights are used as a proxy for overall standard of living," he said. "Short statures reflect a diet deficient in protein. … People were not growing to their full potential." …
One of the most frequent problems I encounter, as I read people who are critical of modern life, is ignorance of life before the Industrial Revolution. Humanity lived in bucolic bliss before the Modern age came along and destroyed everything. In fact, life expectancy at birth was 20-30 years, and infant mortality rates were 200-300 per 1,000 live births. This study shows what life was like in mid-second millennium BCE Egypt. Charles Karelis, in "The Persistence of Poverty," shows how, in the fifth century BCE, the Lydians developed a custom of half the population eating and half fasting one day and then switching places the next in order to endure famines when they arose. The precariousness of life before the Industrial Revolution was pervasive. Whether from ignorance or selectiveness, I have little patience for the one-sided condemnation of technology and modern economic systems by environmentalists.
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