EgyptFirst Dynasty · Umm el-Qaab, Abydos, Sohag, Egypt
Skulls from Abydos show people buried around Egypt's first kings were killed with blows to the head
A century after Flinders Petrie suspected human sacrifice at the First Dynasty royal tombs, a forensic re-examination finds the fractures he missed.
In brief 3 key points
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- 18 of 46 skulls from subsidiary graves at Abydos show fractures made around the time of death
- Petrie seems to have mistaken the fractures for natural damage in the 1920s
- The study suggests at least 39% of the sampled individuals may have been deliberately killed
A forensic re-examination of skulls from the subsidiary graves around the First Dynasty royal tombs at Abydos, Egypt, has found that at least 39% of the people sampled may have been deliberately killed by blows to the head. The finding supports the old idea that members of royal households were sacrificed when the early kings died.
The study, by Roselyn Campbell of Purdue University, was published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology on 5 October.
Rows of graves around the kings
The first kings of a unified Egypt built funerary complexes at Umm el-Qaab in Abydos around 3000 BC. Around the royal tombs and enclosures lie rows of simple subsidiary graves, in some places hundreds of them. Most held a few grave goods such as pottery, and some had copper tools, projectile points or small ivory figures.
A few grave markers name the dead, sometimes with titles. Campbell says these mostly refer to lower or mid-level officials and artisans.
Flinders Petrie excavated the graves in the 1920s. So many burials made him suspect retainer sacrifice, in which people close to a ruler are killed when the ruler dies. But he found no sign of fatal wounds, and the idea was debated for decades.
“Retainer sacrifice can also be a visceral display of the ruler's power. Some retainers might have volunteered to die to achieve eternal life or honor, others may have been chosen or even forced.”
Roselyn Campbell, Purdue University
Fractures Petrie misread
Petrie reburied most of the remains but kept the skulls, some of which went to Britain. Campbell found 46 of them in the Duckworth Collection at the University of Cambridge and examined them again.
Eighteen showed significant cranial trauma, mostly linear fractures. Petrie seems to have taken them for natural damage, but modern forensic methods identify them as injuries made around the time of death. Some skulls also show sharp-force trauma, including a chopping injury to one person's eye.
“The injuries on the preserved crania are generally linear fractures, which would likely cause rapid unconsciousness, internal bleeding, and death.”
Roselyn Campbell, Purdue University
Open questions
How the killings were done is unknown. Egyptian kings are often shown smiting enemies with a mace, but a mace would leave depressed fractures. Linear fractures usually come from a flat, wide weapon or a fall, and a fall that hard would likely have broken other bones too.
The rest of the retainers may have died naturally, or in ways that leave no mark on the skull, such as asphyxiation. Their bodies, reburied by Petrie, have not been studied.
Sources (2)
Peer-reviewed paperfrom Purdue University
- Forensic methods confirm human sacrifice around First Dynasty royal tombs at Abydos (EurekAlert!)
- Front. Environ. Archaeol., 05 October 2026 (Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology)
Paper: Campbell, New data from old bones: using bioarchaeology and forensics to reassess legacy data from ancient Abydos, Egypt, Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology (2026)
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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