ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a disturbing Ancient Egyptian burial practice that saw people dismembered before being put to rest.
The discovery offers a rare insight into the spiritual life of villagers more than 5,000 years ago – and may even mark the beginning of religion for the ancient pharaohs.
3
Researchers found the remains of a teenage girl whose arm had been deliberately severed after her death and positioned to match her left arm.
The girl’s left arm was bent unnaturally in a more than 90-degree angle and tucked in very tightly.
The limb was removed near the lower part of the upper arm and forearm, possibly done using an axe.
The muscles were most likely sliced with a flint blade, according to researchers.
READ MORE ON ANCIENT EGYPT
Her severed arm was carefully arranged to appear almost intact, with the hand placed beside the forearm.
Buried in the Adaiima cemetery on the west bank of the Nile river, the remains date back to between 3300 to 2700 BC.
The girl’s body was carefully aligned with the setting sun on the winter solstice, while her coffin also pointed towards the rising of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
Celestial alignments, and other symbolic gestures, likely influenced the religious traditions later embraced by Egypt’s first pharaohs who emerged between 100 and 400 years later.
3
Her burial may also be the earliest sign of the Osiris and Isis myth – where the goddess Isis reassembles the dismembered body of Osiris beneath the rising Sirius.
The tale is thought to symbolise death, rebirth, and cosmic order.
The cemetery in which her remains were found is one of Egypt’s oldest and most thoroughly studied, and paints a detailed picture about how funerary practices changed over time.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, researchers analysed patterns among more than 900 tombs across the 74-acre Adaiima site.
Another coffin that was positioned to catch the winter sun contained a woman buried with ornate jewelry and pottery.
A third grave, also belonging to a woman, faced the summer sunset and contained a ceremonial staff and plant-fiber wig.
The study suggests these early burials shaped the mythology later adopted by Egypt’s ruling elite – from their sky-based alignments to their ritual gestures, such as dismemberment.
Older graves were placed around earlier, astronomically aligned tombs, suggesting those burials continued to hold religious or ancestral significance over the years.
Ivory boat models and fine coffins were found with remains that researchers believed once belonged to individuals of higher status or spiritual importance.
Similar to the dismemberment, a singular bone belonging to a child was found placed on the chest of an adult in a later tomb.
In the myth of Osiris, Isis gathers the scattered body parts of her murdered husband after he is slain by his jealous brother, Set.
“Sepdet, which we know as Sirius, was believed to be the appearance of Isis in the sky,” the study said.
“When the state emerged, it did not create religion from scratch.
“It absorbed long-standing practices and reworked them into royal narratives.”
3
