One of the world’s earliest cases of rheumatoid arthritis has been found in the skeletal remains of a Nubian woman from the Pan-Grave culture (c.1800 BC) by the Aswan–Kom Ombo Archaeological Project (AKAP). In a recently published paper, the joint Italian-Polish team revealed that rheumatoid arthritis had affected joints on both sides of the woman’s body, affecting her hands, feet, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and ankles. Erosive lesions on the outside of the joint surfaces would have affected the woman’s ability to carry out daily activities and caused considerable suffering. The woman was only in her 20s at the time of her death.
Text: Sarah Griffiths / Image: ©AKAP Project
