{"id":335730,"date":"2026-07-17T15:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/335730\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T15:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:21:09","slug":"weapons-buried-with-ancient-egyptian-women-were-long-seen-as-symbols-new-research-suggests-they-had-a-more-lethal-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/335730\/","title":{"rendered":"Weapons Buried with Ancient Egyptian Women Were Long Seen as Symbols\u2014New Research Suggests They Had a More Lethal Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Egyptian<\/a> princesses may have trained extensively with weapons, according to a new archaeological assessment that suggests the weapons buried with their mummies<\/a>\u00a0were more than mere symbols.<\/p>\n

The researchers examined five\u00a0mummies<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Egyptian<\/a>\u00a0Middle Kingdom royal women for a new paper published in\u00a0Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, finding that their musculature indicates they led physically active lives.<\/p>\n

Their work offers new insight into a long-standing question: whether the\u00a0weapons<\/a>\u00a0buried with these royal\u00a0women<\/a>\u00a0served a practical purpose or were simply symbolic grave goods.<\/p>\n

Discovering Egypt\u2019s Mummies<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of the royal family, especially the women, were active participants in skilled, physically demanding activities such as archery and hunting,\u201d said lead author Dr Zeinab Hashesh<\/a>. \u201cThis conclusion is supported by the way their bones developed to sustain heavy muscle use, which corresponds directly to the weapons discovered in their tombs.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a western plateau overlooking the Nile Valley lies the Memphis Necropolis, a 19-mile-long series of funerary complexes. One of these, a collection of pyramids and shaft tombs known as Dahshur, includes the pyramid of Amenemhat III, where two of the mummies were recovered during excavations begun in 1894 by Jacques de Morgan. These first discoveries were King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep.<\/p>\n

Later in 1894, de Morgan began excavating Amenemhat II\u2019s pyramid complex at Dahshur. There, in early 1895, he discovered what would later be identified as four daughters of the pharaoh: Princesses Ita and Khenmet, buried together in one chamber, and Princesses Itaweret and Sathathormeryt in another.<\/p>\n

Only the remains of King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep underwent scientific examination at the time of their discovery. Eventually, all six sets of remains were transferred to the Egyptian Museum in 1915, where they remained lost until their rediscovery in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"PrincessRemains of the four daughters of Amenemhat II. Credit: Images provided by Zeinab Hashesh
\nWeapons of the Egyptian Dead<\/p>\n

The complex was unusual because these women were buried with objects typically associated with men, including bows and arrows, and a dagger placed inside Princess Ita\u2019s coffin.<\/p>\n

The mummification techniques used on the remains were relatively crude compared with those employed in later Theban burials. As a result, the remains are poorly preserved, with soft tissues reduced to powder, some bones entirely missing, and the princesses\u2019 skulls lost during the early 1900s. Fortunately, enough skeletal material survived to allow researchers to estimate their height, sex, age at death, illnesses, and injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrincess Ita was a young woman aged between 28 and 34 with strong upper-body muscle attachments, suggesting she habitually used weapons like maces or daggers,\u201d said Hashesh. \u201cPrincess Khenmet was a woman in her late 30s or 40s who showed signs of thinning bones, but had very robust ligament attachments. Princess Itaweret was a young woman aged between 20 and 34 who survived broken ribs and foot fractures; her skeleton shows she was a skilled archer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

All four sisters\u2019 bones showed signs of physically active lifestyles consistent with weapons training.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found pronounced development in the upper limbs of these individuals, which correlates to repetitive, high-intensity actions like pulling a bowstring or stabilizing a weapon, proving these activities were habitual throughout their lives,\u201d explained Hashesh. \u201cThis directly explains the presence of bows, arrows, and maces in the women\u2019s tombs; these were not just symbolic gifts but tools they actively used.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Hard Life, Even for Royalty<\/p>\n

The researchers suspect that either a blow or a fall caused Princess Itaweret\u2019s broken ribs, and noted that such injuries were common across all the sets of remains. They also discovered evidence of inbreeding, as the sisters\u2019 spinal abnormalities suggest their parents were closely related.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese injuries were most likely caused by accidents, falls, hard blows, or other impacts linked to an active lifestyle, whether through hunting, military training, or other demanding activities,\u201d said Hashesh. \u201cWhat is remarkable is that the injuries healed well, which suggests they had access to advanced medical care for their time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work on these mummies remains incomplete, however, hampered by the loss of the skulls. Moving forward, the researchers would like to conduct a stable isotope analysis to better understand the nutritional deficiencies detected in the bones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur dream would be to go far beyond simply identifying the Dahshur royals,\u201d said Hashesh. \u201cWe would try to tell their full life stories, their families, health, and even their political roles, with as much detail as possible. Beyond the science, we would preserve the remains, create 3D prints for teaching and virtual exhibitions, and display them alongside their jewelry, weapons, and funerary objects. All of this would be done with respect, ensuring the remains are presented ethically, just as they were originally buried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir objects and jewelry are truly fascinating, breathtaking in their craftsmanship. Yet, while archaeologists have long focused on preserving these treasures, the people themselves were often forgotten. Our study seeks to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paper, \u201cBioarcheological Reassessment of Dahshur Royal Skeletal Remains from the Late Middle Kingdom (c. 1850 to 1700 BCE)<\/a>,\u201d appeared in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology on July 17, 2026.<\/p>\n

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Egyptian princesses may have trained extensively with weapons, according to a new archaeological assessment that suggests the weapons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21],"tags":[7802,162741,1982,101828,136208],"class_list":["post-335730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-egypt","tag-ancient-weapons","tag-dasher","tag-egypt","tag-egyptian-mummies","tag-necropolis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116936002022532036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}