Skeletons From Scribes In Ancient Egypt Prove They Suffered Occupational Hazards Just Like We Do Today Working Modern Jobs

Thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptian scribes faced occupational hazards just like humans working modern jobs today.
In ancient Egypt, scribes were men who had the ability to write well and held a variety of administrative positions.
They were part of the one percent of the population that was literate, so they enjoyed an elevated status in society. However, the tasks they carried out were repetitive.
A team of experts led by Petra Brukner Havelková, an anthropologist from the National Museum in Prague in the Czech Republic, examined the skeletal remains of 69 adults dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C.
The remains were buried between 2700 B.C. and 2180 B.C. in the ancient necropolis of Abusir. Around 30 of the individuals were scribes.
The study revealed degenerative changes that were more common in the skeletons of the scribes than men with other occupations.
In the past, research on scribes typically focused on their titles and depictions of them, while their actual remains have been largely ignored.
“It should be noted that, until now, no one has focused on scribes as an occupational group of individuals whose skeletons show identical or similar changes compared to others, which may be related to the tasks they performed repeatedly and the positions in which they had to remain for long periods of time,” Havelková said.
According to the team, the degenerative changes observed in the spines and shoulder joints of the scribes were caused by sitting in a cross-legged position with the head bent forward for prolonged periods of time. In this position, their spines were flexed, and their arms were unsupported.

Zach – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Furthermore, changes in the hips, knees, and ankles showed that the scribes sometimes sat with the left leg in a cross-legged or kneeling position while the other leg was bent with the knee pointing upward.
The three main postures of scribes were the cross-legged seated position, the standing position, and the kneeling/squatting position.
During the Pharaonic era, ancient Egyptian scribes used a thin pen made of rush until it was replaced by the reed pen around 100 B.C.
Their writings are found on papyrus, wooden boards, and pieces of pottery called ostraca. The team also observed signs of degeneration in the scribes’ jaw joints and the right thumb.
These may have resulted from the scribes chewing the ends of rush stems to create bristles to write with and pinching the pens in a repetitive manner.
“Our research reveals that remaining in a cross-legged sitting or kneeling position for extended periods, and the repetitive tasks related to writing and the adjusting of the rush pens during scribal activity, caused the extreme overloading of the jaw, neck, and shoulder regions,” wrote the researchers.
This information could not have been gathered from written sources or images in tombs. The changes in the scribes’ skeletons are also similar to what is seen in modern populations.
So, it seems that prolonged sitting still affects the human body in the same way today.
The study was published in Scientific Reports.
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