Event: WEDS TALKS: Assessing the Evidence for Human Sacrifice in Ancient Egypt

Abstract: During the 19th century, archaeologists in Abydos, Egypt, uncovered hundreds of small, relatively simple graves surrounding the funerary complexes of the first kings of Egypt in the 4th millennium BCE. Ever since these burials were discovered, scholars have debated whether the individuals within these subsidiary burials were sacrificed to accompany their ruler into the afterlife, or were simply buried close to their royal tomb after dying naturally. Previous scholarship has largely focused on aspects of the burials as well as the political and social context of the time period, rather than assessing the human remains within the graves. This lecture will present evidence from the human remains themselves, which complicates our understanding of First Dynasty funerary practices, as well as our interpretations of state-sanctioned violence and power in the past.

Bio: Roselyn A. Campbell is an archaeologist, bioarchaeologist, and Egyptologist. She earned her PhD at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Montana. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and the Assistant Director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. Her research focuses primarily analyzing trauma in human remains to gain an understanding of violence as a tool of power in the past, but she also researches the history of cancers in human remains and health and Egyptian funerary archaeology