Neighboring Origins

Archeologists recently sequenced the complete genome of an Ancient Egyptian man, who lived around the time of the first pyramids more than 4,500 years ago. 

The man’s remains were originally unearthed in Nuwayrat – a village more than 160 miles from Cairo – in the early 20th century. 

Now a new genetic study of the skeleton has revealed a closer connection between ancient Egypt and the eastern Fertile Crescent, which includes present-day Iraq, western Iran, and parts of Syria and Turkey, than initially thought. 

“He lived and died during a critical period of change in ancient Egypt,” explained co-senior author Linus Girdland Flink in a statement. “We’ve now been able to tell part of the individual’s story, finding that some of his ancestry came from the Fertile Crescent, highlighting mixture between groups at this time.”  

The skeleton was excavated in 1902 and donated to World Museum Liverpool, where it then survived bombings during the Blitz in World War II that destroyed most of the human remains in their collection. 

Radiocarbon dating of the skeleton confirmed that it belonged to a middle-aged man who died sometime between 2855 and 2570 BCE. Flink and his colleagues believe the man was in his 60s at the time of his death – an unusually old age for that era. 

The man appeared to have lived a physically demanding life. His bones bore signs of extended sitting and reaching forward, leading researchers to suggest he may have worked as a potter.  

The research team was also able to extract DNA from the roots of his teeth and sequenced his entire genome. The ability to do this with remains found in Egypt and elsewhere in the region is rare because hot temperatures degrade DNA quickly. 

Roughly 80 percent of the man’s genetic ancestry was clearly North African, but it was the remaining 20 percent that caught the researchers’ attention: The findings showed the man’s genome matched populations from the eastern Fertile Crescent, particularly an area called Mesopotamia – roughly modern-day Iraq. 

Past archaeological research has already found links between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but the recent study provides genetic evidence that people moved into Egypt and mixed with local populations during that time. 

The findings may also offer new clues about the development and spread of writing systems. 

“The first writing systems emerged almost contemporaneously in the two regions,” first author Adeline Morez Jacobs told New Scientist, referring to cuneiform in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphics in Egypt. 

The researchers hope future studies will provide a clearer picture of migration patterns and ancestral links in this historically rich region.