Egyptologists have long debated whether the earliest pharoahs of the First Dynasty were buried with various servants and officials to serve them in the afterlife—a form of human sacrifice. But there is very little archaeological evidence available, given that many of the earliest Egyptian tombs were plundered and/or hastily excavated. A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology reassesses a collection of skulls excavated from tombs in the 1920s and concludes that over one-third show evidence of blunt force trauma. This suggests that they may have been victims of so-called "retainer sacrifice."
Author Roselyn Campbell is a bioarchaeologist at Purdue University who has long been fascinated with the history of human sacrifice. "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," Campbell told Ars. "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 archeology; 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."
Naturally she found the debate over whether ancient Egyptians practiced retainer sacrifice pertinent to her interests. "People tend to fall into one of two camps," said Campbell. "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." Forensic science has advanced considerably over the last century, so re-analysis could be useful. Complicating matters is the fact that older sets of remains are often incomplete and/or modified for preservation, destroying vital forensic information in the process.
What happened in Mangala, where residents were left with little outside support, helps explain how this outbreak became the worst seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A public phone booth in Narooma on Australia’s east coast has been awarded heritage status for the role it played during and after wildfires in the region.
A Mahan Air Boeing 777 with the tail sign EP-MTE arrived at Iran’s Najaf International Airport in July, carrying the casket of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes in February.
A Mahan Air Boeing 777 with the tail sign EP-MTE arrived at Iran’s Najaf International Airport in July, carrying the casket of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes in February.
Focus has been on the resulting rise in oil prices, but it is potential food shortages the world should be paying attention to, ICC secretary-general John Denton said.
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