Builders under Pharaoh Akhenaten worked so hard they broke their backs

When ancient Eygptian pharaoh Akhenaten ordered the construction of the new city of Amarna dedicated to the sun god Aten, more than 20,000 people moved there to do the back-breaking work. The work was so strenuous that it resulted in numerous broken bones, including many fractured spinal bones, says a new study by archaeologists who examined skeletal remains from a commoners’ cemetery at Amarna.

“Adult trauma levels at Amarna were also extremely high, with 67.4 per cent (64/95) of adults exhibiting at least one healed, or healing, fracture. This is again consistent with a population working at hard and somewhat dangerous jobs,” says a paper in the journal Antiquity by Barry Kemp, Anna Stevens, Gretchen R. Dabbs, Melissa Zabecki and Jerome C. Rose.

The team only examined skeletons with more than 50 percent of the bones remaining and found that in addition to probably work-related fractures and degenerative joint disease, they also had smaller-than-average stature suggesting lifelong malnutrition and other hardships.