Maev Kennedy
13,000 year old skeletons of individuals who died in violent battle in early Egypt are being shown for the first time, at the British Museum. Photograph: Guardian
Lying on their sides, curled together, the two skeletons on display for the first time at the British Museum look peacefully laid to rest. But the razor-sharp stone flakes scattered around and among the bones are the remains of ancient weapons, with a myriad breaks and slash marks on the skeletons. The two are among the oldest war dead in the world, men who died a brutal death after violent lives 13,000 years ago.
The cemetery they came from, on the banks of the Nile in what is now northern Sudan, is famous among archaeologists: dating from about 11,000 BC, it is among the oldest organised burial grounds in the world. However, the finds, including the shattered bones of scores of men, women and children and the remains of the weapons that killed them, have never been exhibited before.
"I suspect there was no outside enemy, these were tribes mounting regular and ferocious raids amongst themselves for scarce resources," curator Renee Friedman said. "Nobody was spared: there were many women and children among the dead, a very unusual composition for any cemetery, and almost half bore the marks of violent death. Many more may have died of flesh wounds which left no marks."
"Many had the marks of earlier injuries which had healed: these people lived in extraordinarily violent times."
They were buried very carefully. All the bodies were laid on their sides, heads to the south and looking east – towards the source of the river and the rising sun, the two elements on which survival depended.
"Before this date we find isolated burials of bodies just placed in holes in the ground," Friedman said. "These come from a time when the hunter gatherers are starting to put down roots, and burying their ancestors is a very powerful way of laying claim to the land. But clearly they had to defend it, not once but many times, at terrible cost."
The cemetery at Jebel Sahaba now lies deep under the waters of the Aswan dam. They were excavated in the 1960s by the American archaeologist Professor Fred Wendorf, in one of the Unesco-funded rescue digs when archaeologists from all over the world came to Egypt to save as much history as possible before the waters rose.
The most famous of the projects was the dismantling of the twin temple complex of Abu Simbel, which was reconstructed on higher ground. However, so much material was excavated that research has continued on the finds from other sites for the past half century.
The site excavated by Wendorf was part of early Egypt, and startlingly different from today's familiar landscape of parched baking desert and lush fertile river valley. The people – heavy boned and strong jawed, unlike the slighter later people of Ancient Egypt – were among the first human inhabitants after the ice age, but the weather is believed to have been cold and dry, with little fertile land. Some climate historians believe the water level of the Nile was also rising, compressing the habitable land even further.
Wendorf recovered the remains of 61 individuals, and of the weapons that killed them. When he retired from the Southern Methodist University of Texas in 2001 he presented his collection, including research notes, photographs and site drawings, to the British Museum. The collection has been visited by scholars from all over the world, but has never been seen by the public, until the redisplay of the Early Egyptian gallery allowed some of the most extraordinary pieces, including two of the skeletons, to come out of the stores.
The stone flakes of the weapons, originally lashed into wooden handles which have decayed, look primitive, but they were murderous: Wendorf found hundreds, but scans at the British Museum have revealed many more including some which penetrated and lodged inside the skulls. An arm bone also on display shows a healed fracture, a classic defensive injury from arms raised to ward off a savage blow.
"Often with remains from such an ancient time, we will never know what happened to them," Friedman said. "With these skeletons there is no question: we found arrow heads lodged in spines, spear points that had pierced eye sockets, and many that clearly died under a hail of arrows. The lives and deaths of these people were not nice."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/14/13000-year-old-skeletons-war-dead-british-museum
The cemetery they came from, on the banks of the Nile in what is now northern Sudan, is famous among archaeologists: dating from about 11,000 BC, it is among the oldest organised burial grounds in the world. However, the finds, including the shattered bones of scores of men, women and children and the remains of the weapons that killed them, have never been exhibited before.
"I suspect there was no outside enemy, these were tribes mounting regular and ferocious raids amongst themselves for scarce resources," curator Renee Friedman said. "Nobody was spared: there were many women and children among the dead, a very unusual composition for any cemetery, and almost half bore the marks of violent death. Many more may have died of flesh wounds which left no marks."
"Many had the marks of earlier injuries which had healed: these people lived in extraordinarily violent times."
They were buried very carefully. All the bodies were laid on their sides, heads to the south and looking east – towards the source of the river and the rising sun, the two elements on which survival depended.
"Before this date we find isolated burials of bodies just placed in holes in the ground," Friedman said. "These come from a time when the hunter gatherers are starting to put down roots, and burying their ancestors is a very powerful way of laying claim to the land. But clearly they had to defend it, not once but many times, at terrible cost."
The cemetery at Jebel Sahaba now lies deep under the waters of the Aswan dam. They were excavated in the 1960s by the American archaeologist Professor Fred Wendorf, in one of the Unesco-funded rescue digs when archaeologists from all over the world came to Egypt to save as much history as possible before the waters rose.
The most famous of the projects was the dismantling of the twin temple complex of Abu Simbel, which was reconstructed on higher ground. However, so much material was excavated that research has continued on the finds from other sites for the past half century.
The site excavated by Wendorf was part of early Egypt, and startlingly different from today's familiar landscape of parched baking desert and lush fertile river valley. The people – heavy boned and strong jawed, unlike the slighter later people of Ancient Egypt – were among the first human inhabitants after the ice age, but the weather is believed to have been cold and dry, with little fertile land. Some climate historians believe the water level of the Nile was also rising, compressing the habitable land even further.
Wendorf recovered the remains of 61 individuals, and of the weapons that killed them. When he retired from the Southern Methodist University of Texas in 2001 he presented his collection, including research notes, photographs and site drawings, to the British Museum. The collection has been visited by scholars from all over the world, but has never been seen by the public, until the redisplay of the Early Egyptian gallery allowed some of the most extraordinary pieces, including two of the skeletons, to come out of the stores.
The stone flakes of the weapons, originally lashed into wooden handles which have decayed, look primitive, but they were murderous: Wendorf found hundreds, but scans at the British Museum have revealed many more including some which penetrated and lodged inside the skulls. An arm bone also on display shows a healed fracture, a classic defensive injury from arms raised to ward off a savage blow.
"Often with remains from such an ancient time, we will never know what happened to them," Friedman said. "With these skeletons there is no question: we found arrow heads lodged in spines, spear points that had pierced eye sockets, and many that clearly died under a hail of arrows. The lives and deaths of these people were not nice."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/14/13000-year-old-skeletons-war-dead-british-museum
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