Insects at Amarna

http://www.geotimes.org/may04/NN_plague.html
A study of insect life at Akehnaten's city Amarna (Akhetaten) has revealed that the place was teaming with fleas, flies, bedbugs and parasites, in particular at the tombuilders "Workmens Village". The study by Eva Panagiotakopulu, a paleoentomologist at Sheffield University (UK) believes that the fossilized plague bacteria she identified in the fossilized fleas may indicate that the plague originated in Africa, in fleas that fed on the Nile rat and were only later transferred to Asian rats as carriers, which in turn communicated the plague to the rest of the Mediterranean.