5,000-year-old Egyptian skulls reveal new evidence of retainer sacrifice
Researchers have found forensic evidence of cranial trauma in 5,000-year-old skulls from Egypt's First Dynasty, suggesting that retainer sacrifice was a practiced ritual. The study of remains from Abydos supports long-standing theories that individuals were killed to serve rulers in the afterlife.
Why it matters
This discovery provides concrete scientific evidence for ancient funerary practices that were previously only speculative, deepening our understanding of early Egyptian social structures.
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.
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