How ancient Egyptian warriors treated their companions killed in battle

The authors of a new study have found out what weapon of war killed three Egyptian soldiers at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, around 1500 BC, during the expansion of the Egyptian empire. The analysis of how they died has also allowed us to deduce where it happened and what was later done with the bodies.

The study has been carried out by a team made up of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), which is one of the institutions NEAR the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Universities of Jaén and Granada, in Spain, and the New Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Cairo, Egypt.

From the paleoanthropological analysis of the recovered cranial remains, the research team, headed by Rosario Guimarey Duarte from the University of Granada, has been able to find out what weapon was used during the practice of interpersonal violence, a discovery that has been rare in archeology. Ancient Egypt. It is a curved sword called khepesh by the Egyptians, a weapon used by the Egyptians and the Canaanite populations at that time. This fact is striking, as it means that these young soldiers probably died more than a thousand kilometers from where they were finally buried.

The study therefore indicates that Egyptian warriors transported their companions who died in combat from the battlefield to their place of origin. In this way, the deceased could be buried in a tomb where they could receive a funeral service from their relatives.

Specifically, the injuries were clearly observed in three skulls that belonged to young men (between 20 and 25 years old), which show multiple peri-fatal injuries, up to 9 in one of them, suggesting clear cruelty on the part of the aggressor or aggressors. The three were buried in the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis, a necropolis located near the modern city of Aswan and where a research team from the University of Jaén, led by Dr. Alejandro Jiménez Serrano, has been carrying out archaeological research since 2008. .

Based on the analyzes of physical anthropologists from the University of Granada, the IPHES and the NMEC, it has been determined that the weapon that ended the lives of these three people was a curved sword called by the Egyptians as khepesh, a weapon used by the Egyptians and the Canaanite populations at that time. This sword, which measured around half a meter and weighed just over half a kilo, leaves specific marks on the bone (notches at the ends of the edges), which has allowed its identification in the skulls found at Qubbet el-Hawa.

Photo of a human skull that underwent forensic analysis during the investigation to determine the individual’s cause of death. (Photo: Guimarey Duarte et al. / IPHES / UGR / NMEC)

Although the individuals were buried in different tombs in said necropolis, their deaths coincided with the conquest of the Delta pharaohs of Thebes and the subsequent expansion towards Canaan.

The study is titled “Cranial injuries in ancient Egypt: Three cases of interpersonal violence in the dynastic necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa (Aswan, Egypt)”. And it has been published in the academic journal International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. (Source: IPHES)