The necropolises of the first Egyptian dynasty hide a little mystery: dozens, sometimes hundreds, of bodies buried around the tombs of the ancient rulers. One of the most widespread explanations is that they were courtiers and servants, sacrificed upon the death of the pharaoh to continue to serve him in the afterlife. To date, however, concrete evidence of this hypothesis has been lacking. However, a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archeology could change the game: the research, carried out by Roselyn Campbell, an archaeologist at Purdue University, demonstrates that many of the bodies extracted near the royal tombs show signs of violent death, often caused by trauma to the head. A clue that strengthens the hypothesis of brutal human sacrifices, carried out to allow sovereigns to be cared for by their court even after death.
The genesis of the enigma
The issue has its roots in the first decades of the 20th century, when the famous British archaeologist Flinders Petrie conducted a series of excavations around the royal funerary complexes of Umm el-Qaab, in Abydos. In that area, linked to the very first rulers of Egyptian civilization who lived between 3078 and 2900 BC, hundreds of subsidiary tombs came to light arranged in orderly rows around the main monuments.
Inside these simple burial chambers, often accompanied by modest furnishings, such as ceramic vases, copper utensils or small ivory objects, Petrie found the remains of individuals identified in some cases by inscriptions with the names of low or medium-level officials and artisans. Noticing the simultaneous closure of dozens of tombs coinciding with the death of sovereigns, the British archaeologist was the first to put forward the hypothesis of ritual sacrifice, known as “retainer sacrifice”. The absence of objective data on the causes of deaths, however, long left the door open to doubt and academic debate.
A forensic investigation
To overcome the historical impasse, Campbell decided to adopt a medico-legal investigative approach, directly re-examining the bone remains of forty-six skulls originally collected by Petrie and transported to England.
Through a detailed analysis, the study identified perimortal lesions – i.e. caused at the time of death – on eighteen of the skulls analyzed. The most recurrent injuries include linear fractures on the cranial vault, compatible with the impact of flat and large objects, alongside clean cut injuries, such as a penetrating lateral trauma and a blow inflicted at eye level.
The response
Although it cannot be categorically excluded that some individuals died of natural causes before being buried next to the sovereigns, the presence of violent trauma confirms that a significant proportion of those people suffered a deliberate death, compatible with the thesis of human sacrifices. The data therefore supports the thesis according to which human sacrifice was practiced since the origins of the pharaonic culture.
“In many cultures, servant sacrifice is practiced with the belief that the sacrificed individuals will continue to serve their king in some kind of afterlife, but at the same time, it is also a visceral form of displaying the ruler’s power,” explains Campbell. “Some servants may have willingly agreed to die in order to gain eternal life or honor, while others were probably chosen, or even forced.”