Archeology / Human remains found near the tomb of Pharaoh I provide the first evidence that the ancient Egyptians killed and buried courtiers next to their dead king
John Noble Wilford New York Times, Haaretz, voila!
Above: Human remains uncovered at Abydos. No signs of trauma were found on the skeletons, and it seems that the people were killed by poison. Below: a label with the name of King Aha. The findings may embarrass Egyptologists, who like to emphasize how humane the ancient Egyptians were
Even when ancient Egypt was on the verge of becoming a power, about 5,000 years ago, its rulers held a decisive power over the life and death of their subjects, and were obsessively preoccupied with their own afterlife. The proof of this lay for many generations in the arid sands of Abydos, the burial place of the earliest pharaohs.
In excavations conducted at the site in the last two years, archaeologists found remains of human sacrifices. For a long time, researchers have suspected that the ancient Egyptians used to offer human sacrifices, apparently during the funeral of Pharao himself, but so far the hypothesis has not been substantiated. The human remains at Abydos provide for the first time proof of the existence of the custom. According to Dr. David O'Connor from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, who headed the excavation team, the discovery is "dramatic proof of the great increase in the prestige and power of the kings and the elite class" already
In the early period of the first dynasty of the Egyptian civilization, which arose around 2950 BC.
"It was a fateful period of change, where what had previously been a small culture made a huge leap under Aha's rule," said Dr. O'Connor. "The fact that the king became so important that people were killed to join him in the afterlife - reflects changes in royal power, thinking and religious customs."
The research team, which included researchers from New York University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, found six tombs near the ruins of the burial site of Acha, the first Pharaoh of the First Dynasty. Excavations conducted in five of them revealed skeletons of courtiers, servants and artisans, who apparently were sacrificed to serve the king in the afterlife.
According to the researchers, this is the first sure proof of human sacrifices in ancient Egypt. It is now believed that other graves, located closer to Acha's grave, and more than 200 other graves related to Acha's successor, Ger, were also buried with human sacrifices.
The structure of the tombs, the archaeologists say, was the main clue to the fate of the occupants. A careful study of the tombs associated with Ger shows that they were adjacent to each other, and above them was a continuous roof made of wood. Therefore, the archaeologists say, the tombs must have been built at the same time.
Although the graves at Acha's site were separate, their wooden roofs were covered with a kind of mud patch, a layer added around the time Acha's burial site was built. "This is proof that all these people died and were buried at the same time," O'Connor said.
It seems that the tombs were already looted in ancient times, but the looters were not thorough. They left urns with the royal seal of Acha, remains of ceramics and jewelry of imported ivory and azure stone.
"I don't have enough words to say how exciting the discovery was," said Dr. Laurel Bastok, an archaeologist from New York University who participated in the excavations. "Some of the graves were not of anonymous servants but of very, very rich people whose names and titles were engraved on some of the objects."
Donkey bones were found in one grave. "The king needs a means of transportation in life after death," explained Matthew Adams, an archaeologist from the University of Pennsylvania who co-led the expedition.
Dr. Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago who did not participate in the study, said that the findings "reveal us a lot about the social structure and belief system of the ancient Egyptians." According to her, the findings "are embarrassing for Egyptologists, who like to emphasize how humane the ancient Egyptians were, relatively speaking."
According to Egyptologists, following the new excavations it is necessary to rewrite the history of the first pharaonic dynasty, which ruled Egypt for nearly two hundred years. The excavations also contribute to Abydos' growing reputation as a site of archaeological treasures that are only now being systematically explored.
A team of archaeologists led by William Flinders Petrie, in the 90s, was one of the first to tour the ruins of Abydos, located about 19 kilometers south of Cairo. The team also arrived at Aha's grave. Petrie suspected that the secondary graves contained human sacrifices, but he found no convincing proof of this, and therefore turned to investigate other sites. The simple tombs and mud brick ruins lacked the splendor of later temples and palaces, the pyramids at Giza or the giant tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
In recent years, German archaeologists have re-examined the royal tombs of Abydos and found, among other things, evidence of early forms of Khartoum script from around 3200 BC. If the date is correct, the find seems to indicate the existence of an Egyptian script long before the estimated date so far - roughly at the time of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script.
Four years ago, O'Connor's research team reported finding the buried remains of 14 wooden boats from 5,000 years ago, which appeared to have been used by the dead kings on their journey to the afterlife. Nearby, the archaeologists uncovered the ruins of walls that enclosed small prayer sites, which appear to have been erected during the time of one of the pharaohs to serve as a place of worship in his honor.
According to O'Connor, one of the two domed cult sites discovered has been identified with certainty as belonging to Acha - the successor, and possibly son, of Narmer, the famous pre-Pharaonic queen of Egypt. Acha's seal and name, represented by the figure of a falcon, known as a symbol of royalty, were found in the ruins. The six secondary graves were in close proximity.
O'Connor noted that the findings indicate that human sacrifice was a rare practice in Egypt. No evidence has been found of the custom existing before Acha's time, and it seems that it was discontinued before the end of the first dynasty, even though the Egyptians' concepts regarding the next world remained as they were.
It seems that the prestige and reward that belonged to one who served in the royal household enchanted many, and that the courtiers saw the king as a deity whose command should not be refused. "However, we are talking about real people," said Dr. Teeter, "and it is difficult for us to understand how their devotion to the king could be so absolute."
Although life was good for the king's servants, the health of the aging ruler must have worried them. Following a change of government, they would be sent to exile in the world of the dead and not to early retirement.
"Slaughtering the king's servants may seem like a barbaric act to us," Adams said, but the ancient Egyptians may have seen this sacrifice as a kind of passport to eternal life, a guarantee that they would accompany their king in the afterlife. Whether this hypothesis is true or not, according to Adams the archaeologists found "no signs of trauma on the skeletons". These people seem to have died peacefully, probably by poison.
Courtesy of the Walla website
