A new paper in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology adds another piece to the old argument over Egypt’s earliest royal burials. The evidence comes from skull trauma at Abydos, and it points to at least some of the people buried around First Dynasty rulers being killed when those kings died.
Roselyn Campbell of Purdue reexamined 46 skulls from Abydos that British archaeologist Flinders Petrie excavated a century ago. She found perimortem trauma on 18 of them, mostly linear fractures to the skull and, in one case, a chopping wound. That lines up with Petrie’s theory from the 1920s that many of the subsidiary graves around First Dynasty royal tombs, dating to about 3000 BCE, roughly 5,000 years ago, were retainer sacrifices rather than ordinary burials.
Campbell argues that the graves seem to include artisans, lower- and mid-level officials, harem members, and possibly guards, which would point to a fairly broad royal household. She also writes that these killings likely served both religious and political purposes. What still isn’t clear is whether the victims volunteered, were chosen for it, or were forced.
If you follow ancient Egypt archaeology, this one’s well worth your time. Campbell says the practice appears to have been mostly limited to 3100 to 2900 BCE, before shabtis took the place of actual retainers. At the same time, earlier work at Queen Meret-Neith’s tomb suggests that some nearby graves were added gradually, which means not every burial there has to date to a single funeral.
You can read the study in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
Author: Manuel Bosque
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