Israeli, Palestinian, and German Research Teams Study Bones Excavated from Jericho in Tuberculosis Study

Teresa Neumann/Hebrew University : Jul 20, 2008
Rebecca Zeffert - Hebrew University/Eurekalert

"They told me they had lots of boxes of bones and didn't know what they were because they'd been deposited there fifty years earlier by an anthropologist who'd worked with Dr. Kathleen Kenyon who'd been excavating at Jericho. When I examined them, I recognized that these were the bones from Jericho, and I told them not throw them out!"

(Israel)—Six-thousand-year-old bones excavated in Jericho may help a joint Israeli-Palestinian-German research group combat tuberculosis.

According to Prof. Mark Spigelman of the Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is leading the Israeli team, the bones, which were all excavated by Dr. Kathleen Kenyon between fifty and seventy years ago, will be tested for tuberculosis, leprosy, leishmania and malaria. However, the primary focus will be tuberculosis. (Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority)

Spigelman is known for his pioneering studies of ancient diseases (palaeoepidemiology) found on mummified bodies and human remains from Hungary and Korea to Sudan, in his quest to provide answers to the development of diseases affecting us today, such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and malaria.

According to the university report, there are many unanswered questions about the origins of tuberculosis, although it is believed to have originated in the Fertilce Crescent thousands of years ago. Because Jericho is one of the earliest towns on earth, dating back to 9,000 B.C., researchers theorize that a lot of communicable—or town—diseases would have had a good start in this community.

Spigelman reportedly came across the long-forgotten "Jericho" bones while examining mummies at Sydney University's Nicholson Museum.

"They told me they had lots of boxes of bones and didn't know what they were because they'd been deposited there fifty years earlier by an anthropologist who'd worked with Dr. Kathleen Kenyon who'd been excavating at Jericho. When I examined them, I recognized that these were the bones from Jericho, and I told them not throw them out!"