Researchers have found new evidence that some people buried around the tombs of Egypt’s First Dynasty kings may have been deliberately killed after the rulers died. The finding published in journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, comes from a fresh examination of 46 skulls excavated from a royal cemetery at Abydos in the 1920s.The remains were originally excavated by British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. He had suspected that the large number of people buried around the royal tombs could be evidence of retainer sacrifice. In this practice, people close to a ruler were killed after the ruler’s death so they could continue serving the ruler in the afterlife.However, Petrie had not found clear evidence of fatal injuries on the bones. That left the cause of death uncertain for decades. The new examination of preserved skulls uses modern forensic knowledge and identified significant cranial trauma in 18 of the 46 skulls studied.According to the research, at least 39% of the people represented by the examined skulls may have been deliberately killed by blows to the head. The findings provide new forensic evidence supporting the possibility that retainer sacrifice took place at Abydos about 5,000 years ago.
The burials around royal tombs
The funerary complexes at Abydos were built around 3000 BCE by the first kings of a unified Egypt. Along with the royal tombs, the complexes included chamber tombs and enclosures that were probably used for funerary rituals. There were also many subsidiary burials around the tombs and enclosures.The subsidiary graves were arranged in rows, with some royal tombs surrounded by hundreds of burials. According to Dr Roselyn Campbell, a bioarchaeologist and Egyptologist at Purdue University, each burial was a simple chamber, and some people were buried with a basic coffin.Many graves contained a small number of grave goods, including ceramic vessels, copper tools, projectile points and small ivory figurines. Some of the graves also had markers carrying names or official titles. Campbell says these titles mostly referred to lower- or mid-level officials and artisans.The large number of burials led Petrie to question whether all the deaths could have happened naturally. The clustering of the graves around royal tombs also raised the possibility that these people had died at the same time as the rulers they were associated with.
Why Petrie suspected mass sacrifice
Retainer sacrifice refers to the killing of people close to a ruler when the ruler dies. The belief behind the practice in some cultures was that those people would continue serving the ruler after death.But the practice could also serve as a display of the ruler’s power. Campbell said some retainers may have volunteered to die because they believed it could bring them eternal life or honour, while others could have been selected or forced.
The re-examination identified significant cranial trauma in 18 of the 46 skulls (Representational AI photo)
The Abydos burials had features that made Petrie suspect such a practice. However, the absence of obvious lethal injuries meant that there was no direct physical evidence to prove that the people had been killed.Campbell, from Purdue University, decided to revisit the surviving remains using modern forensic knowledge. She searched for material from Petrie’s excavations and found 46 skulls in the Duckworth Collection at the University of Cambridge.
Modern forensics find injuries
The re-examination identified significant cranial trauma in 18 of the 46 skulls. The injuries included linear fractures, which appear as lines or breaks in the skull.Campbell said Petrie appears to have interpreted some of these injuries as damage caused naturally after death. Modern forensic methods, however, allow researchers to recognise them as perimortem injuries, meaning injuries that occurred around the time of death.“The injuries on the preserved crania are generally linear fractures, which would likely cause rapid unconsciousness, internal bleeding, and death,” Campbell said.Some of the 18 skulls also showed evidence of sharp-force trauma. One individual had a chopping injury around the eye.The researchers cannot determine exactly how the injuries were inflicted. Egyptian kings are often shown using a mace to strike enemies, but the people buried around these royal tombs were not enemies. A mace would also be expected to cause depressed fractures, rather than the linear fractures found on these skulls.Linear fractures can be caused by a flat, wide weapon or by a fall. However, a fall powerful enough to cause such a fracture would probably also have broken other bones. Such injuries should have been visible in Petrie’s photographs or mentioned in his notes, according to the research.
Cause of death uncertain for others
The findings do not explain what happened to all the people buried around the royal tombs. Some may have died naturally. Others may have been killed in ways that did not leave clear marks on the skeleton.For example, asphyxiation may not leave skeletal evidence. Other forms of violence may also only be identified by examining the complete skeletons rather than the skulls alone.Most of the remains excavated by Petrie were reburied, while he kept some skulls, including those later sent to the UK. This means researchers now have only an incomplete sample of the people buried at the site.Campbell said further examination of the bodies could provide more information about how these individuals died. “If I had unlimited resources, I would love to figure out where the bodies of these individuals might be and analyze them,” she said.
