New forensic evidence suggests ancient Egyptian retainer sacrifice

<p>Egyptologists have debated whether the earliest pharaohs of the First Dynasty were buried with servants and officials to serve them in the afterlife, a practice referred to as human sacrifice. Archaeological evidence is limited, as many of the earliest Egyptian tombs were plundered or hastily excavated. A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology reassesses skulls excavated from tombs in the 1920s and concludes that over one-third show evidence of blunt force trauma, suggesting they may have been victims of what is termed "retainer sacrifice."</p><p>Roselyn Campbell, a bioarchaeologist at Purdue University, has studied the history of human sacrifice. She stated, "I'm interested in how we as human beings decide which types of violence are okay and which are not, and how we even define violence. It's very context specific. We have to be careful not to extend our own ideas about what violence is and how it's used into other cultures. With Egypt, we have such a long history of European and colonial archaeology; they came in with very specific ideas about what this culture was. You really have to make an effort to contextualize the legacy data we have."</p><p>Campbell finds the debate over ancient Egyptian retainer sacrifice relevant to her research. She noted, "People tend to fall into one of two camps: either retainer sacrifice definitely happened, end of discussion, or it definitely didn't happen, end of discussion. But nobody's actually looked at the bones in a very long time." She emphasized that advancements in forensic science over the last century could provide valuable insights, although older sets of remains are often incomplete or modified for preservation, which can destroy important forensic information.</p>