It may not have happened – in spite of texts telling a tale of a grand epidemic in the Bronze age world. At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-ancient-egyptian-plague-akhetaten.html … a new study has debunked the idea of plague raging across the new city of Akhetaten [now known as Amarna]. The city was built at the behest of Aknaten and was abandoned not long after he disappeared. A period of around 20 years. A new analysis casts scepticism on the idea the city was abandoned as a result of the plague. Prior to that idea it was recognised the city was abandoned because the cult of the god Amun reasserted itself, removing the legitimacy of a city dedicated to the Aten [whatever that might have been]. Akhnaton was said to have had some kind of vision concerning an event on the eastern horizon. What that might have been is open to conjecture. The mainstream view was that it was a feature of the Sun as the Sun rises on the eastern side of the Nile.
Archaeological evidence for epidemics is not necessarily a confident conclusion. In this instance the fact that some of the people buried at Amarna suffered from trauma one might associate with heavy work – as in lifting and pulling big stone blocks. Hence, the study authors have a good case. We may note they also do not say definitely but usually something like MAY have occurred, and that open sort of assessment. The strange thing is that the goddess of destruction was also the goddess of plague and avenues of statues to the deity were made during the mid to late reign of his father, Amenophis III. Skeletal remains in burials in the new city sometimes show stress and bone structure that might have been associated with a poor diet. As well as degenerative joint disease. These may have an association with the building of the city – and we have no way of knowing if slaves were involved. Neither was there any mass graves. A few graves with multiple burials, but not in big numbers. This could reflect a cultural artifact of the interred – who could have come from further afield. It may of course be that the new city was built in order to escape from plague elsewhere.
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/10/archaeologists-unearthed-footprinta-desert/ …. fresh analysis of human footprints in New Mexico have redated them to 23,000 years ago. Contempory with the Late Glacial Maximum.