How Short is Short, and Why? A Probable Case of Proportionate Dwarfism from Egypt's 3rd Intermediate Period in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt

Abstract

This study describes a probable proportionate dwarf from a Third Intermediate Period cemetery at Ain Tirghi in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. The skeleton (Burial 22 or B22) is an adult female estimated to be in her mid to late thirties. Most medical literature defines an adult stature of 2 standard deviations below the population mean as an indicator for clinically short stature, with some bioarchaeologists and clinicians identifying severe short stature at 3 standard deviations below the population mean. B22 satisfies either criteria when compared with the Ain Tirghi adult female population mean for measurements of the radii and femora, as well as the summed measurements of the femora and tibiae. Her limb proportions were normal and this, with a lack of morphological abnormalities, eliminated several possible causes of small stature (e.g. achondroplasia). The differential diagnosis for an individual with short stature and normal proportions indicates that she represents a probable case of pituitary dwarfism, or hypopituitarism. B22 was buried in the same fashion as adjacent burials in a family group burial and showed no differential indication of physiological stress or illness. Contextualized with the Egyptological and archaeological evidence of dwarfism in Egypt, this case study considers the social perceptions of dwarfism in ancient Egypt and suggests that pituitary dwarfs, like disproportionate dwarfs, likely led normal, if not privileged lives. Therefore, according to the social theory of disability, B22 was not necessarily disabled despite her impairment.

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