Life Expectancy of Ancient Egyptians | Middle East And North Africa

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SHORT LIFESPANS AND EARLY DEATHS IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Giving birth

Joyce M Filer wrote for the BBC: “Life expectancy in ancient Egypt and Nubia was lower than in many modern populations. Whilst some ancient Egyptians undoubtedly enjoyed longevity, most were unlikely to live beyond about 40 years of age. This may seem young by today's standards, but it is important to view age within the context of a particular society. Thus, today people are shocked at the death of King Tutankhamun at the age of about 18 years, yet in his own society he was already 'mature' in terms of family and kingly responsibility. [Source: Joyce M Filer, BBC, February, 17, 2011 |::|]

“Many women died as young adults, and childbirth and associated complications may well have been the cause. Although Egyptians 'experimented' with contraception-using a diverse range of substances such as crocodile dung, honey and oil-ideally they wanted large families. Children were needed to help with family affairs and to look after their parents in their old age. This would have led to women having numerous children, and for some women these successive pregnancies would have been fatal. Even after giving birth successfully, women could still die from complications such as puerperal fever. It was not until the 20th century that improved standards of hygiene during childbirth started to prevent such deaths. |::|

“People are open to the greatest health risks during infancy and early childhood, and in Egypt and Nubia there was a high infant mortality rate. During the breastfeeding period the baby is protected from infections by ingesting mother's milk, but once weaned onto solid foods the chances of infection are high. Consequently many infants would have died of diarrhoea and similar disorders caused by food contaminated by bacteria or even intestinal parasites. In some ancient Egyptian and Nubian cemeteries at least a third of all burials are those of children, but such illnesses rarely leave telltale markers on the skeleton, so it is hard to know the exact numbers affected.” |::|

Trying to Determine Life Expectancy of Ancient Egyptians

relief showing starving Bedouins in the 4th century BC

The study of the human remains at the South Tombs of Amarna showed an inverse mortality curve, ages at death highest between 7 and 35 years, with the peak between 15 and 24 years. Although average life span was lower in ancient Egypt than it is today, Michael R. Zimmerman of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, told the New York Times that many individuals, especially the wealthy, lived a relatively long time. [Source: George Johnson, New York Times, December 27, 2010 ==]

Sonia Zakrzewski of Southampton University wrote: “How long did the average ancient Egyptian live? What was the life expectancy at birth? How did life expectancy change as a person aged? Did this vary across time periods or between areas in Egypt? While some individuals lived to reach a very old age, the average age-at-death was probably not nearly so great.” [Source:Sonia Zakrzewski, Southampton University, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“It is impossible to obtain an estimate of how old the average ancient Egyptian when he or she died. “Arguments should focus instead on variations in patterns of age profiles across Egypt, both in terms of time and place, and in the actual importance of chronological, biological, and social age. Skeletal and mummy studies permit biological age estimates to be made for individuals. These are not chronological ages, as they mark and evaluate the biological changes occurring to that particular person. Chronological ages, in terms of years, may be obtained from documentary sources. It is, however, hard to compare and link these two types of age. In addition, of potentially greater importance is social age. At what age was an individual considered to be a “person,” a “child,” an “adult,” or eligible for marriage or suitable to be a worker? How do these social ages correlate with either biological or chronological ages? Were there social or corporeal markers to delineate such social age categories? Certainly some Egyptian texts contain clear descriptions of what it meant both to be a child and to become old .

“Life expectancy at birth can be estimated in certain situations, as undertaken by Bagnall and Frier for the Roman Period. The key is to remember that life expectancy rises after the child’s survival of the early years, and that life expectancy at birth is not the average age at which adults died within the Egyptian population. Some individuals certainly lived to an old age, and there are plentiful artistic representations indicating respect for elderly men, such as in the tomb of Sennefer. Despite the clear evidence for an idealized life span of 110 years, one should not expect many ancient Egyptians to have ever reached the age of 100 or 110 years.

“When a cemetery is well excavated, using current bioarchaeological and bioanthropological methods, and the skeletal preservation is good, it is possible to obtain good estimates for age-at-death for most individuals. This is easier for subadults, but, apart from the Kellis 2 cemetery at Dakhla oasis, these are not always as well represented in the Egyptian archaeological record. In these cemetery situations, life tables or Bayesian hazard analysis might be employed, and estimates of life expectancy and the age-at-death structure of the sample obtained. In certain situations, mortality profiles developed may then be linked with other archaeological evidence, such as the seasonal peaks in mortality at Kellis 2 in the Dakhla oasis.”

Determining Life Expectancy of Ancient People

Sonia Zakrzewski of Southampton University wrote: “The mortality or death rate (denoted by q) is defined for a specific time interval as the proportion of the population that is alive at the start of that interval but dies before the end of the time interval. The probability of dying, however, is not constant with age. The following section provides a series of definitions of terms required for demographic study. For all these technical terms, an age category is referred to as x, so age-specific mortality (qx) is the mortality rate of individuals in age category x. Age-specific mortality (qx) is high in juveniles, falls to a low during adolescence and early adulthood, and then rises steadily with increasing age. Mortality rates are also affected by factors such as sex and social status. Most groups normally exhibit an attritional mortality profile, where the mortality pattern follows that described above. However, there are also situations where high mortality (or crisis/catastrophic mortality) conditions exist, such as during natural disasters, e.g., flooding or famine, epidemic disease, or period of conflict, and this affects the profile. Life tables are a way of representing the mortality of populations, and model life tables summarize this for typical populations and are useful when reconstructing the life table of a population for which reliable data is only available for some of the age categories (as in most archaeological assemblages). The model life table most commonly used when modeling historical or prehistoric populations, with their high levels of mortality, is the Coale and Demeny “West” model, such as for Roman Egypt. [Source: Sonia Zakrzewski, Southampton University, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

artial lessions from Egyptian mummies

“Life expectancy can be calculated from a life table. The most commonly quoted life expectancy is the average life expectancy at birth (e0). It is important to distinguish between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at later ages because they impact upon understanding how long each ancient Egyptian person actually lived. In addition, ideally an understanding of the risks that may affect the quality of life, death and birth rates, and the causes of death need to be known. The archaeological populations or samples that are available for study are also problematic because skeletons of juveniles are rarely as well preserved as those of adults. This means that this massive number of deaths in the early years of life is rarely recognizable archaeologically, although the Kellis 2 cemetery at Dakhla oasis is an exception.

“Paleodemography is the term used for such studies of ancient or past populations, Methods for demographic analyses of mummies and skeletal samples has recently changed as it has been understood that the methods used to assign ages and sexes to skeletons are conditional upon the samples from which the methods are derived. As a result, aging and sexing are now undertaken in association with demographic studies. Indeed Konigsberg and Frankenberg argue that “individual age or sex estimates cannot be produced until after the demographic analyses have been performed.” Life table study, although still common, has started to be superseded by analysis of hazard models of mortality and estimations of the age-at-death structure of a population. Hazard models are a type of statistical model that specifies the time until an event (death) occurs, and so hazard functions express the risk of death as a function of time . This means that these models can represent a continuous age-at-death distribution using a relatively small string of parameters, such as frequencies of juvenile mortality, and old-age mortality, but enable the maximum amount of information to be used in the analysis of deaths in a population. Hazard models develop probability density functions (f(x)) which are the rate of change of the probability that an individual survives to at least age x (S(x)). These values are thus similar to the life table values of dx and lx respectively. Use of such methods requires both mathematical and computational analysis and so are, at this stage, only starting to be implemented within bioarchaeology.”

Life Expectancy Based on Roman-Era Censuses

Sonia Zakrzewski of Southampton University wrote: “In Roman Egypt there are a variety of different documentary sources of demographic data, including tax and census returns. From this period, over 840 census declarations still exist, with the earliest dating from 12 CE and the latest to about 259 CE. From these census returns, nearly 1100 registered persons can be made out, with sex known for more than 1000 people, and age for more than 700. Census data have their own issues, such as the unit of filing (i.e., at the household or person level) or who was required to file a declaration, but Bagnall and Frier (1994) believe that the entire population of Egypt, whatever the social status, was registered. About three quarters of the Roman Egyptian census returns are from the Arsinoite and Oxyryhnchite nomes, and so are neither fully representative nor random. It is also impossible to quantify how thorough Egyptian administrators were in collating such census returns, or how diligent and accurate residents were in completing their returns. [Source: Sonia Zakrzewski, Southampton University, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“ Bagnall and Frier recorded ages for 337 women from Egyptian census returns. Using the Coale-Demeny “West” model, the life expectancy at birth (e0) for Egyptian women was 22.5 years, but on their 20th birthday (e20) it was another 29.9 years (i.e., 49.9 years of age). Overall, they reconstruct Roman Egyptian female life expectancy at birth as 20 to 25 years, and life expectancy at age 10 of 34.5 to 37.5 additional years. Furthermore, from the census returns, they calculated an annual female birth rate of 42-54 per thousand and an annual female death rate of 42-49 per thousand. They also recorded ages for 350 males from census returns, and obtained an overall sex ratio of 1.104 (males to females, i.e., more than 110 males for every 100 females). Separating the villages from the metropoleis provided a different pattern, with the sex ratio in villages being just 0.861, whereas it was 1.447 in metropolitan areas. This demonstrates the problems with calculating sex ratios from raw data in census returns. Bagnall and Frier also argue for a male life expectancy at birth of at least 25 years, of between 35 and 40 further years at age 10, and of slightly more than 30 additional years at age 20. In addition, they suggest an annual birth rate of about 45 per thousand and an annual death rate of just over 40 per thousand across the whole population.

“Bagnall and Frier noted 211 instances where the census returns preserve both the age of the mother and of her child. From these they calculated that the median age of Egyptian maternity was about 26 years. They also noted 155 cases in which both the age of the father and his child were known, with paternity recorded as rare before age 20 and peaking in the early thirties. The median age of paternity was approximately 37 to 38 years. Slaves also presented census problems, as documentarily, at least, they did not have legal fathers and rarely had a named mother unless the mother was also a slave resident within the household. Less well studied for demographic purposes, but common in earlier periods in Egypt, are commemorative inscriptions.”

Life Expectancy Based on Funerary Stelae and Tombs Information

mummified heart and lung

Sonia Zakrzewski of Southampton University wrote:“From the Middle Kingdom onwards,funerary stelae and tombs contain biographical information, but almost always lack ages at death or dates of birth or death. Autobiographical elements, albeit primarily related to the tomb-owner’s work and position in society, are most common in tomb decoration during the New Kingdom. An example of a private citizen detailing their life with ages occurs in the 21st Dynasty. Examples from the 18th Dynasty include an autobiographical stela from Memphis in which the name of Thutmose may be invoked as an omen for protection. Other artifacts, however, do provide some evidence. [Source: Sonia Zakrzewski, Southampton University, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

“From the reign of Ramesses II, the high priest of Amun at Karnak, Bakenkhons, provides career information on one of his limestone block statues. Altogether, summing together his years of education and periods as various forms of priest, a time span of 85 years is recorded, suggesting that he must have been at least 90 when he died. Such commemorative inscriptions, while useful, are often biased in terms of ages or gender, and usually vastly underrepresent children and infants.

“Scheidel has demonstrated that, during the Roman Period at least, where dates are given on tombstones and mummy labels, these refer to the completion of mummification rather than the actual date of death. In addition to the taxation records noted earlier, longevity and other demographic data may also be obtained from other written sources, such as ostraca, papyri, etc. These may be in the form of letters, receipts, lists of workers, or other similar documents.”

Problems with Health and Life Expectancy Data from Cemeteries

Sonia Zakrzewski of Southampton University wrote: “Aspects of demography can be developed from data obtained by analyzing skeletal or mummified remains. There are, however, a number of issues that arise with this data. No cemetery sample fully and accurately reflects the population structure. The remains buried and excavated from a cemetery are a sample of those who lived at a particular time. Four major extrinsic factors affect the dead assemblage, and all tend to reduce the size of the sample so that it is much smaller than the original population. They are: i) the proportion of all those who died that were buried at the site, ii) the proportion of those who were buried whose remains survived to discovery, iii) the proportion discovered, and iv) the total excavated, recovered, and curated. The final skeletal assemblage studied is therefore only a sample of those who lived, were buried, whose burial survived, and whose body could be discovered, excavated, and studied. It is a sample very much removed from the living population . [Source: Sonia Zakrzewski, Southampton University, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2015, escholarship.org ]

map of the Giza necropolis

“The proportion of the dead that are buried at the site is itself complex. The dead individuals are not necessarily representative of the living population, as they are, by definition, dead. The buried population studied thus is related to the living population from which it originally derived, but it is not a straight and simple reflection of the composition of that living population. This is especially important when considering the interaction with disease and the aging process. Superficially, one might assume that a skeleton displaying greater number of pathological lesions was more “ill” than a skeleton not displaying any such lesions. Similarly, rationally, one might assume that if a population shows a higher proportion of skeletal lesions, or a lower age-at-death profile, the more “unhealthy” that population was relative to comparator groups. Paradoxically, this is not the case.

“Many diseases do not affect the skeleton. In addition, many people suffering from a disease that does leave pathological lesions on the bone may die before any pathological lesions form on the skeleton. As a result, those disease processes seen on the body do not fully represent the health or illness of the individual. This is the osteological paradox, whereby individuals expressing skeletal lesions of disease may be the healthier portion of the living population as they were the people who lived long enough with the disease to produce the skeletal markers of that disease. This means that they survived long enough to display the pathology. Furthermore, within any living population variation in susceptibility to disease exists (so-called “frailty”).

“Those individuals who are actually the most “sickly” or “ill” in a population may leave a skeleton bearing no evidence of disease, whereas those whose health was more robust in life may leave a skeleton exhibiting severe skeletal pathology due to their long survival with one or more infections. Furthermore, infection can reduce immunity to other infections, thereby also affecting mortality patterning, with the most “frail” being most susceptible to other disease processes. Following this osteological paradox, the people recovered from a funerary context may have been more or less susceptible to disease or other biological stressors than the surrounding wider population.

“In addition, social customs for a particular period or place may restrict those who get a burial in such a way that the cemetery would never reflect the true distribution of deaths in the population. It is well-known that Egyptian graves and cemeteries were prone to disturbance as a result of grave robbing or agricultural or urban encroachment. Taphonomic factors affect the relative preservation of burials in differing conditions, with small bones, such as those of juveniles, more rarely being preserved.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2024