Perceiving Impairment over Disability: How Two Individuals in the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom were socially identified using the Bioarcheology Index of Care Approach

How were individuals with dwarfism affected by their physical and social environments during the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods? Building upon previous scholarly arguments about how individuals with dwarfism were identified, I employ the Bioarcheology Index of Care to incorporate the analysis of the skeletal remains of two individuals with Achondroplastic Dwarfism into my argument. Through this approach, I examine the skeletal remains of Pereniankh and the individual that the human remains BMNH AF.11.4/427 belonged to answer this question. Using secondary sources, I incorporate the author's expertise in medical anthropology to diagnose their conditions. From this diagnosis, I evaluate their probable symptoms to discern how their condition affected them throughout their lives. Then, I include primary evidence from excavations at Abydos from the early 1900s, at ancient Nekhen from the early 2000s, and at Giza during the mid to late 1900s to provide the structural evidence for the physical landscape and funerary evidence for the skeletal remains and artworks. From this, I conclude that the social and physical structures in place at Giza and Abydos enabled them to accommodate their condition largely independently, unlike urban contexts today. Because they were able to be independent, their condition would not have been viewed as a disability. To back this claim up, I examine the artistic reliefs of Pereniankh and BMNH. Their reliefs accurately depict their conditions. Ancient Egyptian art depicts the idealized self; therefore, the fact that the sculptors and commissioners chose to accurately portray their condition supports my argument. Using this understanding from their individual Bioarcheology Indexes of Care and artwork that accurately depicted their conditions, I posit that high status individuals with Achondroplastic Dwarfism in the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom were thus not othered or identified as disabled, as previously theorized.