Wednesday, December 7th, 2016
Post date: Jan 19, 2017 2:03:15 AM
On Wednesday, December 7th, 2016 we were able to have Mr. Jim Keron from the London Chapter come down and present for us. He presented on his Dakleh Oasis Project in Egypt.
Kellis was an important town in both the Ptolemic and Roman times in Egypt. It had two thousand to twenty-five hundred people living there from 300 BC to 400 AD. Kellis has 2 known cemeteries within it which are named simply Kellis 1 and Kellis 2.
Kellis 1 was a family rock cut tomb, while Kellis 2 was a Christian burial with the traditional Christian burials. What makes them Christian was the tendency to bury their dead with the heads to the west and in single burials. There were no grave stones so determining how the burials were organized was the basis of Jim’s research and what he spoke to use about.
Kellis 1 had burials were 30% mummified and contained grave goods. Kellis 2 contained 641 burials in only the 20% that has so far been excavated. Due to the fact that they were Christian burials there were no grave goods and thus no way to link the burials to one another.
So what is one to do? Mr. Keron examined genetic traits that could be seen on the bones to determine who was related to whom. He showed several examples of holes, grooves and orbital spurs that can be seen on the skulls of individuals that are actually genetic traits that are passed down in families. He used these to help determine their relationships to one another.
Interestingly, he discovered that there were more females located at the grave site than males. This is likely due to the fact that the men would have left the area to go on caravans for trade purposes where they could have died elsewhere, where their bodies would have remained.
Mr. Keron looked at 38 different genetic traits that were visible on the bones, 21 showed kinship traits and from that he determined that the cemetery was organized by kinship, and that it was a patrilocal internment (buried around a male family member).
It was a very interesting presentation and showed how even without the existence of grave markers or grave goods one can show an actual link between individuals buried in a cemetery. Thank you Jim for coming down to present for our chapter!