Scientists have examined the remains of an ascetic monk, bound in “chains,” whose burial was excavated in Israel several years ago. The researchers analyzed the proteins in the man’s tooth enamel and concluded that the tomb from the 5th century AD likely contained a woman who tormented herself with iron chains. The article was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
In East Jerusalem, a few kilometers from the Old City, lies the site of Khirbat el-Masani, where archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Byzantine monastery that existed between 350 and 650 CE. During recent excavations at the site, researchers uncovered several burials that apparently date back to the 5th century CE. In one of these tombs, they found the poorly preserved remains of a man who was buried in chains—heavy iron objects worn by ascetic monks to restrain the flesh. In place of the man’s neck, arms, and legs, scientists found numerous large metal rings, the diameter of which reached approximately ten centimeters, and the total weight of several dozen kilograms.
The skeleton of this ascetic monk has survived to this day in a very fragmentary form, and the already small number of preserved bones literally crumbled when touched. Nevertheless, Paula Kotli from the Weizmann Institute of Science, together with her Israeli colleagues, conducted a study of these remains. Three preserved cervical vertebrae and one tooth made it possible to determine that the burial belonged to an adult, who was probably between 30 and 60 years old at the time of death.
To determine the sex of this individual, the scientists turned to peptide analysis of the enamel of the only remaining tooth, the second premolar of the upper jaw. They found that the sample lacked peptides specific to the AMELY protein, the coding gene of which is located on the Y chromosome. Instead, they found a significant number of peptides of the AMELX protein, the gene of which is located on the X chromosome. This allowed them to conclude that the tomb from the late antique period likely contained the remains of a woman.
According to the researchers, it is known that women in the Roman Empire at least since the 4th century AD took up asceticism. Moreover, famous aristocrats, such as Melania the Elder, a Christian saint who came from a wealthy noble family, and her granddaughter, Melania the Roman, turned to self-restraint necessary to achieve spiritual goals. However, the burial, which the scientists devoted a new article to, still attracts attention, since this is the first archaeological evidence that in Byzantium at that time, women, and not just men, engaged in self-torture by wearing heavy chains.
Proteins can persist in tooth enamel much longer than DNA. That's why scientists increasingly turn to their analysis when examining ancient remains. For example, N + 1 previously reported how researchers determined the sex of hominins who lived in South Africa more than two million years ago based on the ratio of amelogenin isoforms in tooth enamel.