The Amarna region of Egypt is especially famous because, in the mid-14th century BC, Pharaoh Akhenaten decided to build his new capital of Egypt. Akhetaten, founded around 1345 BC. and which sheltered between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, it is one of the best preserved cities of Ancient Egypt and one of the most accessible to archaeologists.
That is because it was built, occupied and practically abandoned in a particularly short period, between 15 and 20 years. It had been built to stage the change of cult (the worship of the god Aten) but the death of Akhenaten in 1336 BC. changed the plans. His successor, the famous Tutankhamun, abandoned it in his third year of reign and the court and administration returned to Thebes.
Among its ruins, researchers discovered what is known as the Northern Desert Cemetery and, in one of its underground tombs, with multiple chambers, they found the body of a young woman between 18 and 21 years old. The remains would not have been much more special if it were not for the fact that in his pelvic area there was a calcified mass the size of a large grape with two hooked teeth.
Analysis carried out in the laboratory determined that this ovoid-shaped part was actually the oldest known example of a rare tumor in the ovaries known as teratoma, a disease of which only four archaeological samples had been found until now: three in Europe and one in Peru. All of them are from later centuries.
"At the age of 18 or 21, this woman probably would have been someone's wife," explains Gretchen Dabbs, a bioarchaeologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, in an article published in the International Journal of Paleopathology. But her role was not to stay at home and take care of the home and children.
"There's little doubt he was working in some way," adds Dabbs. Previous research in Amarna has suggested that women of this age engaged in a variety of trades that could include working on state-level construction projects, brewing beer, or tending gardens and domestic livestock.
According to experts at the Cleveland Clinic, a teratoma is a rare type of germ cell tumor that can contain immature or fully formed tissue, including teeth, hair, bones and muscles. Most of them are benign, although there are some that lead to cancer. Current treatment involves surgical removal.
The tomb where the young woman was found was one of the most richly decorated burials that have been discovered in the non-elite cemeteries of the city of Egypt's New Kingdom period located on the eastern bank of the Nile River in the middle road between Cairo and Luxor (ancient Thebes).
Archaeologists have investigated four large cemeteries associated with Amarna. The woman's tomb consisted of a pit and a burial chamber and her body was wrapped in a plant fiber mat. She was buried with various grave goods, including a ring decorated with the figure of Bes, a deity often associated with childbirth, fertility and protection.
The ring may indicate, as archaeologists explain, that the teratoma was symptomatic, since the possible "magical-medical" object was placed on the woman's left hand, which was folded in her lap. This may mean that the girl "was attempting to invoke Bes to protect her from pain or other symptoms, or to assist in her attempts to conceive and give birth to a child," they wrote in the study.
