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	MURST YEAR 1998-2000 Coordinator EDDA BRESCIANI Title of the Research ILLNESS, HEALTH AND SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE ANCIENT EGYPT. A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PROJECT lasted: 24 months

Objective of the Search

The complexes of Egyptian mummies, in Italian museums and collections, still constitute a material to study from the paleopathological point of vue. The numerousness for champion varies from individuals based single mummies. In the mummies the observations by the optic and electronic microscope have shown that the cells very often result in a state of maintenance that doesn't differ substantially from that of the tissues fixed to the fresh state.

Purpose of the project is that of the schedatura of the greatest number of mummies and their paleopathological study (paleonutrizional, autoptic, istological, immunoistochimical, ultrastruttural, biological-molecular).
The objective is that to get direct data on the evolution of the illnesses, particularly of the infectious illnesses and of those neoplastic in the population of the Valley of the Nile; from here the amplification of the project for the direct examination of human finds skeletal and mummified in situ (missions of excavation of the Pisa University in Egypt).
The project is proposed to know besides what the influences of the feeding were, of the conditions of job, of the environmental and of the illnesses on the population of the Valley of the Nile from the predynastic epoch up to the centuries V-VI AD, with cross searches with the data furnished by the direct egyptological documentation to recognize conditions patocenosical
of the nilotic antiquity.

The paleopathologica research will include the individualization of all the pathological stigmates that have left trace on the human rests, skeletal or mummified. The objective is that to diagnose the illnesses of the single individuals, for better defining its Patocenosis of affiliation, intending each other with such term the whole the illnesses of one determined population in a given environment and in a date epoch (Grmek). subsequently it will be possible to compare the data gotten with the different known epidemological models; the search will be articulated in a series of specialistic investigations that they will understand: the macroscopic examination, radiological and istological; the examination of the stomatographic apparatus; the survey of the stripes of Harris or arrest of growth; the paleonutritional investigations.

It will be possible to determine the incidence of the different morbid pictures, clinicians and sub-clinicians, within the elevated social classes of ancient Egypt and to determine its Patocenosi. The gotten data will be compared with the nosological situation of the populations of the same epoch and following, in way to be able to get a dynamic model of the evolution of the Egyptian Patocenosi.
Fundamental it is the creation of a bank-data ("Anubis") of the greatest number of mummies with their cultural study.

Unities of research

1] Pisa University Unity- Egyptology

Responsible Edda BRESCIANI, PO Egyptology
Collaborators: F. Silvano
M.C. Guidotti
V. Tomatis
P.R. Faggioni

2] Pisa University- Paleopathology

Responsible Gino FORNACIARI, PA Paleopathology
Collaborators: R. Ciranni
D. Caramella
V.C. Bertolini
D. Barraco

3] Camerino University- Biomolecology

Responsible Franco Ugo Rollo, PA Biomolecology
Collaborators: S. Luciani
I. Marotta
M. Ubaldi