麻豆淫院

A recent study by Michelle Langley, Anna Stevens, and Christopher Stimpson, which was conducted as part of the Amarna Project through the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, has identified a bone whistle recovered from the 18th Dynasty city of Akhenaten in Middle Egypt.

The study is in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

The city of Akhenaten (modern-day Amarna) was established around 1347 BC by Pharaoh Akhenaten and flourished for a single generation before being abandoned after the pharaoh's death in around 1332 BC.

The settlement has been the subject of excavations since the 1970s. However, it is recent work around the two isolated settlements to the east that provided the intriguing find.

The settlements, called the Workmen's Village and Stone village, likely housed the stonecutters and laborers tasked with creating the rock-cut tombs of the nearby royal cemetery.

The settlements were heavily guarded with what seems to have been roadway circuits meant to police the movement into and out of these areas.

One of these structures linked to the roadway circuits around the Stone Village was Structures I and II. Structure II was likely a checkpoint or guard post, while Structure I may have been a storage building or a place for the guards to sleep.

Only a single artifact was recovered from Structure I, a perforated cow toe-bone (phalanx).

The phalanges of ungulates have often been used by various cultures to create ornaments, gameplay components, handles, and figurines.

However, the Amarna bone did not fit into any of the above categories, lacking the modifications, use-wear, and taphonomy typically associated with these uses.

Experimental recreation of the artifact using cattle phalanges revealed that the bone could serve as a whistle, producing a loud tone which could be heard from some distance away.

Considering the context of the find, the researchers hypothesized that the whistle may have been used to signal, warn, or attract attention.

However, direct evidence for such uses is lacking, possibly because much of what we currently know about ancient Egypt comes from royal and elite contexts, leaving simpler, everyday objects much more understudied and underpublished.

Langley elaborates, "The investigation of 'soundscapes' in ancient Egypt is a very new avenue of research. We can see in the iconography of tombs, ostraca, and other decorated works that musical instruments of various complex forms were made and used. A number of these instruments have also been found and are now curated in museums."

"We have not found whistles, however, and we are not aware of images of such tools being used in paintings/engravings, etc. It may be鈥�that these more everyday tools were not considered important enough to be included in such images. These images depict life in a stylized fashion, which highlights what was important to the individual/community at that time."

Langley further explains the broader challenges and significance of such discoveries, saying, "Open sites" have to contend with the elements and so are usually less well preserved than enclosed spaces (such as tombs and caves). Termites are also a problem for the preservation of organics in Egypt, with bone often being heavily damaged by these insects.

"Having said this, much of our knowledge of ancient Egypt comes from the study of the elite鈥攖heir spectacular tombs and monuments, glittering gold and jeweled artifacts having drawn the eye of scholars and the public alike since their rediscovery.

"The more mundane, everyday tools of the average person have largely been put aside (with the exception of pottery and textiles, I think). Undecorated and 'simple' tools, like those made on bone, might not look as impressive, but they can still tell us a great deal about the people who made and used them. This is why sites like Amarna are so important, because they record the lives of the whole community, and not just the Pharaoh and the elite."

The Amarna bone whistle is a testament to the importance of the everyday cultural repertoire of ancient Egypt. It is thus that Langley hopes to study other bone artifacts from past excavations, which may provide further insight into these understudied artifacts.

"I have also examined pointed bone tools recovered from Amarna by both English and German excavation teams over the past 100 years, and we are currently in the process of preparing this new data for publication (so watch this space!)," says Langley.

"I hope to continue studying how ancient Egyptian peoples used bone, ivory, and shell to create tools and ornaments鈥攗ltimately to learn more about this enigmatic culture and what everyday life looked like through the millennia. Who knows what is sitting in museum collections waiting to be identified and understood?"