Hierzu der Artikel aus der NY Times:
With Escorts to the Afterlife, Pharaohs Proved Their Power
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: March 16, 2004
When ancient Egypt was on the threshold of greatness, about 5,000 years ago, the rulers were already wielding fateful powers over life and death and obsessing over their own afterlife. The haunting evidence has lain buried for ages in the parched sands of Abydos, resting place of the earliest pharaohs known to history.
In excavations over the last two years, archaeologists have recovered that evidence: the remains of human sacrifices.
The practice of human sacrificial burials in Egypt, presumably to coincide with the pharaoh's own funeral, had long been suspected but never substantiated. Now it has been for the first time, and Dr. David O'Connor of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts said the discovery was "dramatic proof of the great increase in the prestige and power of both kings and the elite" as early as the first dynasty of the Egyptian civilization, beginning about 2950 B.C.
"This was a critical period of transition, when what had been a relatively small-scale civilization before took a gigantic leap under the ruler Aha," said Dr. O'Connor, director of the excavations. "The idea that a king had become so important that you dispatch people to go with him into the afterlife reflected changes in royal power and in religious practice and thinking."
The discovery team, organized by N.Y.U., Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, found six graves next to the ruins of a mortuary ritual site dedicated to the departed Aha, the first pharaoh of the first dynasty, and not far from his tomb. Five of the graves have been excavated, yielding skeletons of court officials, servants and artisans that appear to have been sacrificed to meet the king's needs in the afterlife.
The researchers said this was the first definite archaeological evidence of such human sacrifices. Similar graves previously found closer to Aha's tomb and the more than 200 others associated with Aha's successor, Djer, are now thought to be almost certainly sacrificial burials as well, Dr. O'Connor said.
The findings were described in recent interviews with Dr. O'Connor and other members of the expedition. A formal announcement is being made this week by Dr. Farouk Hosni of Egypt's Ministry of Culture and Dr. Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The construction of the graves, the archaeologists said, was the principal clue to the fate of their occupants. A careful study of the graves associated with Djer indicated that they were all contiguous and had been covered with uninterrupted wooden roofing. The excavators said the burials thus had to have been made at the same time.
Although the graves at the Aha site were separate, their wooden roofs were covered by a continuous mud plaster layer applied at about the same time that the adjacent mortuary ritual structure was erected. "This makes a strong case," Dr. O'Connor said, "that all these people died and were put in the graves at the same time."
The graves appeared to have been plundered in antiquity, but the looters were not thorough. They left jars with the royal seals of Aha, remnants of ceramics and jewelry of ivory and imported lapis lazuli.
"I can't describe how exciting that was," said Dr. Laurel Bestock, an N.Y.U. archaeologist on the dig. "Some of the burials were not just servants of no account but very, very rich people whose names and titles were inscribed on some possessions."
One grave held the bones of donkeys. "The king would need transportation in the afterlife," suggested Matthew Adams, a Penn archaeologist who was the expedition's associate director.
Dr. Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, who had no role in the research, said the findings "really tell us a lot about the social structure and the belief systems of the early Egyptians."
But the discoveries, Dr. Teeter added, "are embarrassing for Egyptologists, who like to stress how relatively humane the ancient Egyptians were."
Text zur Abb. unten:
A grave near Aha's tomb included the legs of a 4-year-old apparently involved in a sacrificial ritual, remains of ivory bracelets and amulets.
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