His and Her Feast, Traveling Through 3,400 Years

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Author: Guo Kai (School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southwest Medical University) Li Yuan (School of Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology)

Producer: China Science Expo

When people travel to Egypt, they are always shocked by the magnificent ancient ruins of ancient Egypt. However, the grandiose and magnificent royal tombs of ancient Egypt cannot reflect the living conditions of ordinary people at that time.

(Photo source: Veer Gallery)

Such an ingenious human wonder must have been the product of the hard work of highly skilled professional architects. So, what kind of life did the designers of the wonder live at that time?

Amazing Discovery: Artisan Village Next to the Valley of the Queens

On February 15, 1906, two Europeans appeared at the ruins of the ancient village of Deir el-Medina on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. They were archaeologists Ernesto Schiaparelli and Arthur Weigall from Italy and the United Kingdom, and they were obviously well prepared.

The Luxor region where Deir el Medina is located is one of Egypt's most famous archaeological sites. It is home to the world-famous Valley of the Kings, where the famous pharaoh Ramesses II (Figure 1) rests.

The climate here is hot and dry, but the weather in early February is slightly cooler, which is suitable for field archaeological work. Schiaparelli was the then director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy. Two years ago, he discovered the tomb of Ramses II's favorite woman, Queen Nefertari (Figure 1). This woman who was loved by everyone was buried in the Valley of the Queens in Luxor after her death.

Figure 1. Pharaoh Ramses II (top) and Queen Nefertari (bottom)

Image source: Reference 2

Who built these massive and beautifully constructed tombs? And what were their living conditions like?

These questions also linger in the minds of these two archaeologists.

So they came to Deir el Medina to find the answer, because this ancient village next to the Valley of the Queens is said to be a gathering place for ancient Egyptian craftsmen. They climbed a cliff next to the ancient village and opened a tomb that had never been excavated (the tomb chamber is numbered TT8). Research found that the owners of this tomb were a couple who lived in the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt. The husband was an architect named Kha and the wife was named Merit (Figure 2).

Surprisingly, although the couple were not royal relatives, there were as many as 500 burial objects in the tomb, making it the most complete and richest civilian tomb of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt ever discovered. The excavation of the tomb of this wealthy civilian couple has attracted widespread attention in the archaeological community.

Figure 2. Kha statue (top) and Merit mask (bottom) excavated from Kha and Merit tombs (TT8 chamber)

Image source: Reference 3

Most of these funerary objects were brought back to the Egyptian Museum in Turin by Schiaparelli. With its rich collection of Egyptian artifacts, the museum has become the second largest Egyptian museum in the world (after the National Museum of Egypt) and an important research base for ancient Egyptology. As a result, there are more exciting stories surrounding the Kha and Merit funerary objects collected in the museum.

Blind box secrets revealed: A century-long wait for a technological breakthrough

The grave goods of Kha and Merit, collected in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, are very rich, including painted wooden boxes, furniture, jewelry, measuring tools, cosmetics, textiles, alabaster jars and food in vessels (Figure 3). What is particularly striking is that there are many sealed containers in the grave goods.

What exactly was inside those containers was a mystery to Schiaparelli.

However, Schiaparelli suppressed his curiosity and made a far-sighted decision: he did not allow the staff to open these sealed containers. These archaeological "blind boxes" and the secrets they contained were left to future generations, waiting for them to reveal the secrets with more advanced science and technology. This wait lasted for more than a hundred years!

Figure 3. Bracelets (Figure 1) and cosmetic items (Figure 2) found in Kha and Merit burial objects

Measuring tools (Figure 3) Chess sets (Figure 4)

Image source: Reference 3

When human civilization entered the 21st century, the rapid development of science and technology made the conditions for "non-invasive or minimally invasive" archaeological research increasingly mature. In 2017, in order to realize the long-cherished wish of Director Schiaparelli, the Turin Egyptian Museum launched a research project code-named "TT8 Project", planning to unite international "experts" in Egyptian archaeology, cultural relic restoration, history, and heritage studies to conduct a comprehensive study of all the preserved Kha and Merit cultural relics (from the TT8 tomb chamber). The project is planned to be completed in 2024 as a tribute to the museum's 200th anniversary collection celebration (in 1824, the museum collected the first batch of cultural relics from Egypt).

Under this project, 12 research teams quickly gathered, and everyone used various cutting-edge technologies to study the collection of cultural relics. Among them, an Italian-British joint team reported that they used neutron and gamma ray technology to "non-invasively" study a sealed alabaster bottle and metal bottle, and successfully detected the presence of mixed animal and plant oils inside, which brought surprises to the archaeological community (Figure 4). However, considering the complex chemical composition of the mixture in the closed container, this type of detection technology is not enough to determine the composition of the contents based on physical identification and give a clearer answer.

Figure 4. Photos of alabaster bottles and metal bottles taken by researchers (upper left and lower left), and neutron radiography images (upper right and lower right)

Image source: Reference 6

The bigger surprise came from the research team of Ilaria Degano of the University of Pisa in Italy. They thought that since objects in sealed containers are not easy to obtain, they could use the method of "smell to identify cultural relics" to start with the volatile gases of the substances in the sealed containers, and use cutting-edge analytical technology to indirectly judge the contents of the containers from these gases that have been sealed for thousands of years. They used mass spectrometry technology, which has also gone through a century of history and has developed into a huge analytical system.

The SIFT-MS technique was chosen here. This technique was originally used to quantitatively analyze trace gases in mixed samples, such as human breath analysis in the medical and health field, environmental air quality testing, rapid analysis of vehicle exhaust, and flavor analysis in the field of food science, but it is the first time that it has been applied in the field of archaeology. In fact, its characteristics of simple operation, sensitivity and speed, and no need for special pretreatment of samples before testing just fit the "non-invasive or minimally invasive" field testing requirements in this archaeological study.

The entire research process runs parallel to the museum exhibition: the artifacts are exhibited as usual and research is carried out at the same time.

The researchers selected about 50 funerary artifacts, most of which were sealed containers that had not been studied before. One week before each sampling and analysis, the artifacts to be tested were covered with a customized inert transparent bag by the researchers to isolate the artifacts from the environment, while the exhibition of the artifacts to be tested would not be affected (Figure 5). Therefore, visitors who come to visit the museum during this period may be a little puzzled: Why are some bottles and jars in the exhibition hall wearing "transparent raincoats"?

Figure 5. The artifacts to be tested are wrapped in custom inert transparent bags in the exhibition hall.

Image source: Reference 5

Considering that the volatile gases emitted by the items in the container are in the upper part, the researchers inserted the fine needle at the front end of the detection instrument into the head or neck of the container, as close to the contents as possible, and set up a blank control group to compare and analyze the results obtained with the database, standard products and reference materials (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Sampling and analysis of sealed cultural relics

Image source: Reference 5

The study found that the chemical composition of the gas in these containers includes amine compounds (the relatively high content of trimethylamine and dimethylnitrosamine is unique to dried fish), monoterpenes and plant aromatic resins (such as benzoin), some aldehyde compounds (from ancient vegetables and fruits, which may be the reason why the museum exhibition hall has a slight fruity aroma), sulfur compounds, linalool, furan and furfural derivatives (from flour or wine), monocarboxylic acids, aldehydes and long-chain hydrocarbons from beeswax, acetic acid, acetone, monocarboxylic acids and aldehydes from animal and plant oils, etc. According to archaeological analysis, the beeswax in the container may be a cosmetic ingredient, and the double-ear bottle in Figure 6 is most likely a wine container.

Once the research results were reported, they immediately aroused great interest in the academic circle and beyond: it turns out that we can "smell" history from thousands of years ago. Some people even suggested that museums could consider developing an experience activity that allows visitors to smell ancient odors (of course, whether such odors would make people feel uncomfortable is not discussed here).

Yesterday Relived: Happy Times of the Royal Architect

Based on various archaeological research results, we might as well boldly imagine the living scenes of Kha and Merit 3,400 years ago:

The west bank of the Nile River is sunny and warm (Figure 7). In the village of Deir el Medina, there live the wealthy royal architects Kha and his wife. Kha is trusted by the Egyptian royal family for his superb skills and management ability. He has served as the person in charge of the tomb projects of three pharaohs.

As a "three-dynasty veteran", he enjoyed high prestige in the craftsman village. Kha and his wife had two sons and one daughter. They enjoyed rich food and fine wine on weekdays, used benzoin, a luxury product from the far east, and the hostess liked exquisite jewelry and fashionable beeswax cream cosmetics. They loved each other, lived in harmony, and promised to live happily together forever...

Thus, this feast spanned thousands of years...

Figure 7. Luxor area on the west bank of the Nile

Image source: Reference 8

Editor: Sun Chenyu

References:

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