Overview
- A peer‑reviewed paper published on Monday, October 5, 2026 reports that Roselyn Campbell re‑examined 46 skulls from Flinders Petrie’s 1920s Abydos collection and found 18 with perimortem cranial trauma.
- About 39% of the examined crania show linear fractures and some sharp‑force marks that forensic analysts say are consistent with fatal blows to the head.
- Those injuries lend new physical support to Petrie’s long‑standing hypothesis that some royal household members were killed after a king’s death to serve in the afterlife.
- Major uncertainties remain because Petrie reburied most skeletons in the 1920s so only skulls survive for study and some deaths could have left no bone evidence, such as asphyxiation.
- The finds reshape debate on early Egyptian state violence by tying ritual killing to First Dynasty royal burials (c. 3100–2900 BCE) and point to the need for permission to locate and study reburied remains for fuller answers.