Fingerprints as indicators of craftworkers’ age and sex in a sample of clay ushabtis from TT 209, Luxor, Egypt

This article analyses fingerprints identified on a set of backed clay Egyptian funerary figurines, known as ushabtis. The strata in which they were found dates from the late Persian to the early Ptolemaic dynasties (ca. fifth to third centuries BCE), but the objects might have been made some two centuries earlier, during the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty (ca. 747656 BCE), and then reused for a later burial. The authors propose that fingerprints preserved on ancient objects can be used to understand the roles that age and sex played in the organization of production systems in ancient societies. The Mean Ridge Breadth (MRB) and Mean Ridge Density (MRD) of each discrete fingerprint was measured. The craftworkers ages and heights were calculated from the MRB using specific regression equations, and their probable sex was determined by correlating the MRD with that of the reference population (contemporary Sudan). An age/sex identification matrix was then created to combine the results of MRB and MRD determinations for each piece. The results show, with high probability, that around 90% of the ushabtis were made by female adolescents between the ages of 11 and 16, and the remainder by children and some adult women. A minimum of between four and eight craftworkers manufactured the ushabtis, and due to their age and the relatively low level of skill required, it is proposed that they are likely to have been in the learning phase of their trade.