The white boxes with labels all contain skeletal remains. So where exactly were the excavations done, you ask?
The skeletal remains in Dr. Baker's lab were excavated from the Fourth Cataract region of el-Ginefab School Site, a large cemetery next to the el-Ginefab Village in Northern Sudan. Cataracts refer to rocky areas of rapids which interrupt the flow of the Nile River. There are six major cataracts between Aswan and Khartoum, which you can see from the map above. Since many burials are situated in low-lying floodplains, many archaeological sites are actually in danger because of agricultural development from modern villages.
In these past three days, I have learned more about the history of Nubia and its complicated relationship with Egypt as well as how to clean and label skeletal remains. Thus far, Nubia has been seen as subordinate to the seemingly dominant empire of ancient Egypt. However, this is not entirely true. Brief rundown: around 1520 BCE Egyptians took over Nubia, however, in 747 BCE, Nubia extended north and took control of Egypt. Though there were tensions between Nubia and Egypt, there was also a lot of trade between the two regions so both sides were heavily influenced by each other. An interesting difference that Dr. Baker and Annie were talking to me about was the differing views of women between Egyptians and Nubians. Egyptian women are portrayed as very thin and dainty while Nubian women are portrayed as fiercer and larger, the exact same manner as the Pharaohs are depicted.
Now after that background, you might be wondering how the labeling and cleaning of skeletons is done.
That's right! For labeling, archaeologists have an intricate process of labeling which utilizes the highly valuable and priceless tools of clear nail polish and black pens! First we put a layer of clear nail polish, write the cataract number, date that it was excavated, and burial site number, then add another layer of nail polish. Voila! You can now become an expert bone labeler! Perhaps a little too excited...
Anyways, this is a tray of bones that I have labeled! I just want to warn viewers, that the image below may be considered graphic and will show human skeletal remains( I have to state this as a precaution).
For bone cleaning, Dr. Baker has an air compressor to take off all the dust that has been ingrained in the bones. As you can imagine, it is a very dusty lab( when you breathe you can practically taste the bones!). Back in the day, archaeologists used tooth brushes to take dust and grime off the remains. However, this type of cleaning damages skeletal DNA, making tests on the remains harder to conduct. The air compressor blows air and water onto the bones. From what I've been told, you're not supposed to use too much water and use mostly air to clean off the dust. Here's a photo of the air compressor.
As for what'll be happening in the upcoming weeks, I am happy to announce that I have outlined a solid plan with Dr. Baker. I will be going through written field records of smaller grave sites and creating data sets with that information. Then, I will be using the R programming language to check for patterns in the burials and skeletal remains. For the large el-Ginefab School Site, I will probably not be creating my own data sets, but instead getting them from Annie, unless I find I have extra time to make them.
Now that I have a plan, I am thrilled to have a definite goal to work towards! If bone labeling and cleaning are this exciting, I can't even imagine how amazing these upcoming weeks will be! Thank you to everyone reading my posts and see you for the next post.
P.S. I have added an artifact of the week on the left column which you should check out!
Wow, looks like you've got a lot done in your first week, congratulations! As for this week's question, what is the purpose of using nail polish over any other type of label? For example, do printed labels leave unwanted adhesive residue, or is it just more cost efficient to use nail polish?
ReplyDeleteHi Caleb! I know for sure that using the nail polish is more cost efficient than other methods. Annie says she gets the clean nail polish at Target(I think) for a dollar. I'm not entirely sure about the printed labels so I'll have to get back to you on that.
DeleteTo get back to you, Annie told me that making labels with museum pens and nail polish is very reversible because if you make a mistake acetone can be used to erase the label. With the remains, the goal is to make the label as reversible as possible and printed labels are not the best for that, especially with some of the smaller shards of bones we have to label.
DeleteAh, that makes sense. I didn't even think about the reversible aspect, but I guess that's why I'm not labelling the bones!
DeleteThis is some pretty cool stuff Nichole! You mentioned the BONE project in the beginning of this post. Is there any way you could tell us what this project is specifically?
ReplyDeleteHi Adam! The BONE project stands for Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition project which is a three year project looking at the identity of past people in Nubia through the excavation of ancient burial sites in the Fourth Cataract region of Sudan. I believe I have a link on my home page for the BONE project which will give you more details.
DeleteHey Nichole! You're project seems like so much fun! It must be so exciting to clean and label bones like archaeologists do! But what was the hardest part about doing it? Also, how long did it take you to do one bone?
ReplyDeleteHi Urmi! It is fun cleaning and labeling bones! I guess the hardest part is cleaning the mandible with the air compressor and trying to keep the teeth intact in the mandible. It depends what bone I'm cleaning. The smaller bones always take the longest, especially if they are porous.
DeleteHi Nichole, your project is very interesting and I can't wait to hear about it over the next few weeks! Is the R programming you mentioned a program that you created? Do you have any hypotheses as to what you will discover with the bones?
ReplyDeleteHi Liam! No, I didn't create the R programming language. R is a programming language used for statistical computing and is actually mostly used by statisticians for data analysis. A hypothesis is that between the late meroitic period and the kerma period, more pathologies will be seen on the skeletons since conflicts between regions within Nubia increased during this time.
DeleteHi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteYou figured out a lot in a week which is really impressive, the bone labeling method is pretty interesting to learn, and I had never heard of the use of the air compressor tool to clean the bones. My question for you is that you mention that archeological sites are being threatened, are there any efforts taken to keep them intact,
Hi Megna! That's a good question! The thing is that villages in Sudan are agriculturally based so for the Sudanese, the expansion of agriculture into archaeological sites is necessary to maintain their way of life so unfortunately there are not many efforts to try to maintain archaeological sites in Sudan.
DeleteHi Nicole, this project sounds even more interesting as it progresses. I can't wait to see what other artifacts you work with. My question is, how long ago have these bones been excavated and does their time out of the ground affect any of the data?
ReplyDeleteI know that some of the skeletal remains in the lab have been excavated in 2003 and in 2009. One thing Annie told me was that in the ground, skeletal remains look very intact and when they come out, they often break so sometimes observations are more accurate when looking at the remains in the ground( that's what field records are for!)
DeleteHey Nicole! So far, it sounds really intriguing because you're repurposing common household items I would never think of using. Given that you're examining artifacts from Nubia, do you feel like you're accomplishing as much here than if you had the opportunity to do your research in Nubia?
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to next week!
Since most of the remains are in Dr. Baker's lab, I feel like the research I intend to do wouldn't have changed in any way whether or not I actually was in Sudan. We're really lucky to be able to have the remains in the lab!
DeleteHi Nichole! This project is so cool and it's incredible that you are able to work with ancient artifacts and analyze the history behind each piece! I was curious about your mentioning of the differing views of women in Nubia and Egypt and I think it would be really interesting if you researched if those contrasting ideals were actually seen in the anatomical structures between both areas in your R program!
ReplyDeleteHi Aparna! Thanks for commenting on my posts. I will definitely think about that when using R!
DeleteHi Nichole. It is amazing how much you have learned within the first week. You mentioned that applying too much water and dusting the bones with a toothbrush may damage them. Is there any other precautions you must take when cleaning and labeling the bones in order to preserve them?
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia! One thing I can think of is not to use the air compressor on teeth because teeth are fragile and may be able to be used for DNA analysis.
DeleteSeems like it's been a really busy and well spent week. It's really awesome how you're not only learning the process of cleaning bones and getting data on burial sites, but also getting a lot of information on the culture and history of Nubia. Out of curiosity, have you learned about any other cultural differences between Egypt and Nubia?
ReplyDeleteHi Luke! To answer your queestion, I know that there are burial differences between Egyptians and Nubians. Nubians are buried flexed usually to their side with their palms covering their face. Egyptians are buried extended and are sometimes mummified.
DeleteThis project is amazing. I love how you combine your interests in biology, history and literature to show your passion for learning about the history of Egypt and Nubia. Can you explain to me a little more how your research with bones will tie back into your project of the history of Egypt and Nubia?
ReplyDeleteHi Ewe! I'm hoping to see from the field records collected of the skeletal remains patterns in how people died or how they were buried to hopefully reconstruct what Nubian society might've looked like. I hope to give you more details when I'm further in the project!
DeleteI really enjoyed reading your post this week. Unfortunately, I did not come up with a pun like I promised in last week's comment.
ReplyDeleteIn the fourth picture, you have all of the bones laid out and labeled. Is there a certain way you organize the bones once they have been labeled?
Also, I really hope we can one day see the remains of what is in that green case. Is it the full skeleton? So cool!
Hi Ms. Conner! We try to keep the skeletal remains in anatomical order and they are organized that way in the plastic bags they are in before we take them out and clean them. I believe there is a skeleton in the green trunk, but I'm not sure whether all the bones were found.
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