AbydosOver a third of skulls near First Dynasty tombs are fractured.
The bones suggest servants and officials were killed to accompany Egypt’s first kings.
Purdue’s Roselyn Campbell found linear fractures in 18 of 46 Abydos skulls, published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
“It is economically very costly to kill off hundreds of people every 20 to 40 years,” said Campbell.
Petrie reburied 96 people’s long bones mixed in one pit, making matches to skulls extremely difficult.
How each outlet framed it
- Ars Technica
- emphasizes methodological caution against colonial bias; bioarchaeologist stresses context-specificity in interpreting ancient Egyptian violence
- Phys.org
- applies modern forensic analysis to 1920s skulls, identifies cranial trauma in ~39% of sample; resolves Petrie's earlier inconclusive findings
Sources: Ars Technica, Phys.org