Stories from Sicily: Research and Reflections

Today's entry was written by our friend from the UK, Dr. Emuobosa Orijemie.

The altar and painting in the crypt by candlelight 

Monday, July 31, 2017

The day started at the Porker Bar where participants usually have breakfast—brioche with cappuccino or gelato. We converged in the “lecture room” at 10:30 a.m. as against the usual 9:00 a.m.; Dr. Reinhard thought it would be better for the group to have more hours of rest having attended the “Eggplant Festival” the night before. Dr. Reinhard introduced the topic by providing the history of dietary analyses of mummies which began in the 1930s by Danish palaeobotanist, Helbaek. The mummies that Helbaek studied were wet so that it was easy for him to empty their intestinal contents, which had well-preserved seeds. In England, Dr. Holden was cited as one of the major contributors to the field; it was he who published a summary of the processes and contexts of regarding dietary remains of humans during the 1980s.

Dr. Reinhard talks about dietary analysis

In the United States, Callen and Cameron were among the pioneers in studying Peruvian human remains especially coprolites. With the unfortunate and untimely death of Callen due to health complications associated with the altitude of the site, Dr. Vaughan Bryant was invited to continue Callen’s work. Subsequently, Dr. Reinhard was introduced to dietary analysis by Dr. Bryant. An important point highlighted by Dr. Reinhard was the standards in dietary analysis of human remains. He indicated that stable isotopes emphasized meat intake and could not detect undigested plant food remains (fibers) which constituted a major percentage of the diet of early Native Americans. Hence, this technique would likely produce some error as it was with the case of Ötzi, the individual who was initially thought to have lived a vegetarian or vegan life style. However, the discovery of remains of wheat, plant fibers, and charred meat indicated that Ötzi was neither a vegetarian nor a vegan. A second case was when Bryant and Reinhard found that some of the mummies they studied yielded abundant plant remains. Their results were in contrast to those of stable isotope analysis, which had indicated that the individuals had 95% of their food resources from the ocean. Hence, where possible stable isotope analysis should be complemented by archaeobotanical analyses i.e. macro- and microbotanical analyses.

Dr. Orijemie gives his presentation on dietary reconstruction

After Dr. Reinhard's talk, there were three presentations namely by myself, Brianna Haberyan, and Ruth Grady. I talked about my experiment in Nigeria where pollen analysis was conducted on freshly collected faecal matter of two human subjects, a ram, and chicken. The main results were that few pollen grains were recovered from one of the human subjects, which indicated that it had most likely consumed processed foods. The other human and animal subjects had a diversified amount of pollen grains from which their diet and environment were reconstructed. 

Students ask questions at the end of Dr. Orijemie's presentation

Brianna talked about an America POW soldier in Korea who died in 1951 and became mummified. He was repatriated in 1954 and exhumed in 2006. A coprolite sample, 3cm in diameter, from this mummy was analysed. It yielded two kinds of seeds, which were initially thought to be Perilla frutescens and Brassica juncea (mustard seeds), but after scrutiny turned out to be inaccurate. Other plant remains recovered included the pollen of Rosaceae and Oryza sp., and fibers from a kimchi-like source. In addition, remains of military government-issued foods were absent, while very little starch grains were found. These findings were in sharp contrast to testimonies of Korean War veterans who indicated that they were fed starch-rich foods. The study, which is still ongoing, has the potential of becoming a classic upon completion.

Brie presents her research on a Korean War POW

Before Ruth Grady’s presentation, Dr. Reinhard talked about “Pollen in Mummy: New Methods”. He discussed the mummified remains of a 5-6 year old boy belonging to the Ventana Cave Burial 5 of the Tohono O’Odham group of Southern Arizona. It was excavated in 1941 and initially analysed between 1981 and 1984. A re-analysis of four coprolites was conducted by Dr. Reinhard where seeds of mesquites (Prosopis juliflora var. glandulosa) and saguaro (Carnegiea gagentica) were recovered. It was concluded that the child was fed with seed cakes of these two plants shortly before his death, while the fresh pollen of saguaro indicated that the child died between Mid-May and July, which is the flowering period of the plant.

Dr. Reinhard gives his second presentation on pollen in mummies

Ruth presents research done on the Piraino 1 mummy

Ruth Grady presented a paper on the dietary remains of the Piraino I, Sicily mummy who suffered cancer at the end of its life. Analysis of the intestinal remains revealed an absence of wheat starch and environmental pollen grains. There was occurrence of the eggs of the parasitic worm Trichuris trichiura, seeds and stones of grapes, wheat chaff, and the pollen of Polygala, a medicinal plant. The main conclusions were that (i) the individual was heavily infected with Trichuris trichiura, (ii) absence of environmental pollen was suggestive of death during winter and (iii) the abundant Polygala was probably used as treatment for  stomach disorder and for the reduction of tumor size. 

Lunch was served at about 1:15 p.m. It was pasta covered in pesto (basil, cheese, and pine nuts), cheese, fresh tomatoes, and bread. Work was to resume at 2:45 p.m.

Some tomatoes, mozzarella, and bread to go with your pesto?

Pasta Pesto!

From 2:45-3:55 p.m., Dr. Morrow set up glass bottles containing seeds, fly puparia, and other insect fragments. We hoped to use the dissecting microscope, which unfortunately did not come up because of issues with converting the currents of our electronic devices. Hence, we had to improvise by using hand-held magnifying glasses and an Optivisor. In addition, a sample from a Lithuanian mummy was “analysed” by students. With Dr. Morrow’s supervision, faecal matter of rodents and/or small reptiles, small twigs, and the exoskeleton of unidentified insects were recovered.

Students look at macroscopic remains

At 4:00 p.m., our Italian lessons began. The instructor, Katia Trifirò, taught numeral figures, months, and years after which we were all engaged in specific tasks regarding constructing sentences using numbers, months, and birth dates. This was, as usual, challenging but exciting, particularly because I had erroneously indicated in Italian that my date of birth was 31st August 1908. This, indeed, almost scared the instructor. Half-way into the lesson, Dr. Reinhard requested that Katia Trifirò teach us terms (such as dead, skeleton, death, blood, embalming process, coffin, fire, window, clothing, St. Francis, art paintings, niche, ribs etc) found on and/or associated with the crypt and the mummies. We returned to the Italian lecture at 5:41 p.m. and ended at 6:12 p.m. at which point several students were experiencing slight headaches and had become fatigued.

The struggle is real..."Sono nato il trentuno agosto mille nove otto" I was born on 31st of August, 1908.

Katia gives the Italian names for items in  the crypt

Dinner was served at 8:20 p.m. with lettuce, flattened fried pork, pears, peaches, and chocolate dessert Salami.

Fried pork!

And for the Vegetarian in you, some fried eggplant

One of the crypt candles

At 9:30 p.m., the group, led by Dr. Piombino-Mascali, re-enacted the visitation scene at the crypt. Dr. Piombino-Mascali explained that on the 2nd of November every year it was the custom of Sicilian people to visit the crypt to have some form of symbolic relationship with the beloved relative who had passed away. Candles were lit, which gave the crypt a kind of ambiance reflective of “sacredness”. Every student was asked to reflect on the situation and the common thought was that it was “peaceful, quiet, and reassuring to see one’s beloved relative who had passed to the great beyond with the hope that one day it would be our turn.” A German journalist friend of Dr. Piombino-Mascali's, Michael Stang, was there to record the event. We left the crypt at about 10:20 p.m., and that was how we rounded off the day.

Reflecting on the dead