A fingerprint was followed by another … and another … and another. The Archaeologists of the University of La Laguna that investigate the Tebana Tomb 209 (TT 209) In Luxor (Egypt) they have already found near 200 ushebtis with the imprints of … The fingers that molded those old funeral clay figurines that represented workers in the hereafter. A Pioneer study of 60 of those footprintsin the purest style of the CSI, he has baffled researchers.
“Are The first fingerprints studied in Ushebtis»And« The surprise was that they were from people Very young and in all cases in which sex has been determined, of female individuals», He says Miguel Ángel Molinerodirector of Project two zero nine.
The Professor of Ancient History and Egyptology of the ULL explains, in telephone conversation with ABC, that although the role of women is known in traditional pottery in places like the Canary Islands or Morocco, in contemporary Egypt Scenes of the reliefs found inside the old tombs show men in the workshops. However, in view of their investigations, «Women should be more frequent in Egyptian alfares than what the bibliography was assumed».
Ushebtis found in the TT 209
Project two zero nine / José Miguel Barrios MUFREGE
The analysis of the fingerprints carried out by Esperanza Gutiérrez and Jesús Herrerínfrom the University of Alcalá and the University Institute for Police Sciences (IUICP) «show, with high probability, that About 90% of Ushebtis were made by adolescents between 11 and 16 years old, and the rest for children and some adult women ». His research, advanced two years ago and now published in greater detail in the German scientific journal ‘Anthropologischer Anzeiger‘, he discovered that there was A more active artisan, 13 or 14 years oldalthough they were «a minimum of between four and eight»Those who elaborated the funeral figurines.
They seem to have been made in series from “the same mold or several identical”according to Molinero, pressing a clay block inside and then folding the remaining material on his back with his fingers. Except for a copy, all figurines have At least three fingerprints and some up to six.
These little ushebtis, of just 6.5 centimeters highthey did not have the surface enough to keep any complete fingerprint, but partial imprints enough to measure the width and average density of its crest. With these data, the ages and heights (about 143 centimeters on average) have been calculated reliably, as well as their sex, in individuals over 12 years. To determine this, a recent study of fingerprint impressions of the current population of Sudan, the closest geographical and ethnically to the populations of ancient Egypt, has been taken as a reference.
“It has opened a path”
The young age of those who carried out these work, little specialized, suggests that they were Apartments of pottery workshops. The researchers assume that, once they were acquiring knowledge with age, adult women would carry out objects or containers of greater difficulty. «Our study is leading to study footprints in other ceramic pieces To see if the girls learned to be potters, it has opened a path, ”Molinero is congratulated.

Exterior of the Tebana Tomb 209 investigated by the University of La Laguna team
Project two zero nine / K. Harzbecher Spezzia
For project director Dos Cero Nine, this investigation also shows that there is no harm that does not come. The grave is in a water channel, something unusual in ancient Egypt, and periodic floods have caused a humidity who erased the paint from the figurines, except a few bluish tone remains. “What could be considered bad luck for high humidity inside the underground cameras is providing other types of information,” he says, since he has exposed the footprints of the architects of the Ushebtis.
The statuettes were found In one of the lateral cameras of the TT 209a funeral complex built near Deir-El Bahari for Nisemroa senior cloudy official of the XXV dynasty (VII and VIII AC) that was ‘seal supervisor’, something similar to a Minister of Economy of Alto Egypt. The excavations made since 2012 by the Spanish mission have discovered that this monumental tomb was built on terraces on the slope of a Wadi (Valle). A lateral axis of the grave, perhaps as a result of subsequent extensions, was reused for burials of family members until early Ptolema (from the fourth century to II AC).

Site plant. The ushebtis were found in the side chamber located on the left end of the image.
Project two zero nine / Sergio Pou Hernández
The finding of the funeral figures in these side rooms, in several strata of this late around 400 ushebtis, they lead to the Egyptologists to think about They were brought from another chamber of the tomb itself, from an anterior burial of the XXV dynastyand reuse for deceased of that most recent phase.
Among the pieces there is also none that seen the clothes that identify the foremen, when the Ushebtis boxes used to include a worker for every day of the year and a foreman for each week. In addition, they found loose next to the mummies, as if they had been distributed without paying attention to their placement.
Spanish Egyptologists of Project Dos Cero Nine still have another 50 ushebtis more in which fingerprints are clearly distinguished. The investigation continues.
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