A skeleton found in a 4,500-year-old ceramic pot has rewritten the history of Ancient Egypt.
A DNA test on the man’s bones has upended how historians could view the rise of Ancient Egyptian civilisation.
The skeleton, found 165 miles south of Cairo at Nuwayrat, belongs to a 60-year-old potter who lived between 2855–2570 BC.
However, researchers have revealed that a fifth of his DNA came from ancestors living 9,000 miles away in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq.
It is the first direct evidence that the two legendary cultures influenced each other through migration as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC, when people began to farm and domesticate animals.
This led to the formation of an agricultural society.
Egyptologists had theorised that this revolution contributed to similar development in Egypt, with this DNA now proving their case.
This is because it shows migration from West Asia towards Egypt, meaning information could have been passed on when migrants arrived at the Nile.
This new information could explain how Egypt went from simple farming communities to becoming one of the most powerful civilisations on Earth.
Adeline Morez Jacobs, who analysed the remains as part of her PhD at Liverpool John Moores University, told BBC News: ‘You have two regions developing the first writing systems, so archaeologists believe that they were in contact and exchanging ideas. Now we have the evidence that they were.
‘We hope that future DNA samples from Ancient Egypt can expand on when precisely this movement from West Asia started and its extent.’
While researchers did caution that this study only considered the case of one man, who could have been an anomaly due to his high-status burial, they say their findings support other evidence that Mesopotamian culture had reached Egypt, likely through migration.
Egypt specialists have unearthed a lot more information about this Egyptian potter than just his migrant heritage.
Despite his job, his body was placed in a large pot inside a rock-cut tomb, usually reserved for the Egyptian upper class.
This burial, which took place before mummification was the norm, likely helped preserve his DNA, which was taken from bone in his inner ear.
He is predicted to have had brown eyes, brown hair and dark to black skin and was 5ft 2in (1.57m).
The Nuwayrat man also lived to an advanced old age, with his worn teeth and osteoarthritis indicating he could have died as late as 64 years.
Experts believe certain skeletal features point to his work as a potter, including an enlarged hook-shaped bone at the back of his skull, meaning he looked down a lot.
Professor Joel Irish at Liverpool John Moores University said: ‘He worked his tail off. He’s worked his entire life.
‘What I wanted to do was to find out who this guy was, learn as much about him as possible. What his age was, his stature was, what he did for a living and to try and personalise the whole thing rather than treat him as a cold specimen.’
The Nuwayrat man’s life also coincided with the beginning of the legendary Old Kingdom in Egypt’s history, which witnessed the building of the ‘Great Pyramid of Giza’ by King Khufu.
The ability of scientists to extract and read DNA from ancient bones could trigger a wave of discoveries about Ancient Egypt.
(Credits: Getty Images)
Prof Pontus Skoglund at the Francis Crick Institute explained: ‘If we get more DNA information and put it side by side with what we know from archaeological, cultural, and written information we have from the time, it will be very exciting.’
It also allows experts to look at history from the perspective of ordinary people, through written records from rich and powerful people.
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