Wounds on 5,000-year-old skulls could solve a mystery surrounding Egypt’s earliest kings.
Around 3000 BCE, the rulers of the First Dynasty were buried at Abydos, in southern Egypt. Around some royal tombs were dozens, sometimes hundreds, of more modest burials. They included members of the royal household, officials, and artisans.
Excavations in the Abydos necropolis, one of the main funerary complexes of ancient Egypt.
Credit: Kyera Giannini / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 2.0.
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This arrangement has intrigued researchers since the first excavations. Many of these people appear to have been buried around the time of the ruler’s death. In the early twentieth century, archaeologist Flinders Petrie therefore proposed that they had been killed to accompany their king into the afterlife. Yet he had found no obvious fatal injuries.
A new study revisited the analysis using modern forensic methods. Researcher Roselyn Campbell located 46 skulls from Petrie’s excavations, now preserved at the University of Cambridge. She looked for fractures produced around the time of death, which can be distinguished from breaks that appeared much later.
The result significantly changes the interpretation of these remains. Eighteen of the 46 skulls, or 39%, bear traces of significant trauma. They consist mainly of long fractures that Petrie had apparently interpreted as natural damage. Some injuries could have quickly caused loss of consciousness, internal bleeding, and then death.
A few skulls also show marks caused by a sharp object. One of them bears an injury around the eye. However, the researchers cannot precisely reconstruct how these people died. The linear fractures observed do not match the blows from clubs depicted in some Egyptian scenes.
These clues strengthen the hypothesis of “retainer sacrifice.” This practice involved killing people close to a ruler after his death, especially so that they could continue serving him in the afterlife. Objects and inscriptions found in some burials indicate that these people often held intermediate positions or worked as artisans.
The study covers only 46 preserved skulls, a small portion of the individuals discovered. The others may have died naturally or in a way that left no mark on the skull, such as asphyxiation.
A large part of the skeletons had been reburied after the early excavations. Finding them would make it possible to examine the remaining bones and look for other injuries. The study thus shows that a century-old collection can still yield new information as analytical methods advance.