186 • Eugen Strouhal 



Table l. Comparison of characteristic features of spinal tuberculosis of 

 cases 1 and 2 



DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS 



Most other diseases that can cause a similar picture, listed by 

 Steinbock (1976; 176, 179), are systemic, and leave traces 

 also in other skeletal locations, which were not found in our 

 case. The possibility of a healed compression fracture, how- 

 ever, has to be considered, although usually only a single 

 vertebra is involved. Its areas of predilection arc the cervical 

 and upper thoracic spine. Destruction of the vertebral body is 

 less extensive than observed in our case (Ortner and Putschar 

 1981 : 149). We may add that on radiograms a diagonal break 

 may be detected and that the intervertebral spaces usually 

 remain intact. 



SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS 



Our patient very probably must have been nursed during the 

 initial period of his disease in childhood. After healing was 

 completed and the deformity of his spine became fixed, he 

 was able to be self-sufficient and lead a normal way of life. It 

 could have been precisely because of his curious external 

 appearance that he was considered a "sacred" person, and 

 buried in the area of the Pyramid Temple of Raneferef. Tuber- 

 culosis was not connected with his death. 



Case number 2 



ARCHEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND 



In tomb no. 87 of cemetery K situated on the slope of the left 

 Nile bank west of the fortified settlement at Nag'el-Scheima 

 (area of recent Sayala, 130 km south of Aswan), an adult 

 skeleton was lying stretched out in the supine position with 

 head to the west and arms alongside the body. There were no 

 funeral offerings in the tomb. Together with other burials of 

 cemetery K, serving the common people of the fortified set- 

 tlement, the tomb dates from the Christian period (6th- 1 1th 

 century a.d.). 



EMBALMING METHOD 



No traces of an attempt to preserve the body by mummifica- 

 tion were found. 



AGE 



All cranial sutures were still open except for beginning of 

 fusion in the lateral thirds of the coronal suture (C3). In the 

 mostly preserved dentition (only upper right 12 and C and 

 lower left 1 1 were missing and both upper I I , upper left C 

 and lower right II showed broken-off crowns) we found fully 

 erupted third molars and only the beginnings of attrition of 

 the dentine (points) in most of the teeth. At the same time, 

 both lower M2 were already lost and their alveoli closed. The 

 crown of the lower right M 1 was devoured by a caries leaving 

 in situ only roots surrounded by a periapical abscess cavity. 

 Both lower M3 showed occlusal caries, greater right (diame- 

 ter 3 mm) than left (diameter 1 mm). Premature incidence of 

 caries, already beginning in deciduous dentition, is a com- 

 mon feature of the population of Sayala during the Christian 

 period. Resorption of the alveolar process was only slight 

 according to the scale of Brothwell ( 1 963: 1 50) with incipient 

 atrophy of the alveolar process around both lost lower M2. 

 Beginnings of deposition of dental calculus could be ob- 

 served. 



Most of the epiphyseal and apophyseal fissures were com- 

 pletely closed, except between bodies SI and S2 of the sac- 

 rum and on the medial ends of the clavicles. Moreover, traces 

 of recent epiphyseal or apophyseal fusion could be detected 



Zanreh Pttleoputholo^y S\mp. I98fi 



