The Medieval Necropolis of Mouweis (Shendi Area, Sudan): Bioarchaeological Insights

Summary

The site of Mouweis is a Nilotic city of the Meroitic period excavated by the Louvre Museum since 2007. This settlement includes a 1st century AD palace, later destroyed and reduced to a hill-shaped ruin. During the medieval period, a cemetery was created in the demolition level of this palace. Radiocarbon dating reveals a funerary occupation between of the 8th to the 14th century. Burials were mainly individual with a uniform typology and follow the same orientation as the structure of the Palace, and excavations highlighted a concentration of seven burials at the centre of the Palace. The particular layout suggests a funerary layout from the center to the periphery, and this (according to social status, age-at-death, sanitary state, sex...) is the basis of our palaeobiological study. The sample represents 21 individuals (17 adults, 4 juveniles). The central group covers a largest number of pathological conditions and one of the most significant results of the palaeobiological analysis is a case of leprosy. Although the presence of this infection in that particular region was known, palaeopathological cases remain particularly scarce in medieval Sudan.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Life and Death in Ancient Nubia: Archaeological and Bioarchaeological Perspectives   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16927