We have known for quite some time about the practice in Ancient Egypt where a
soldier would, after a battle, present to the Pharoah severed hands from enemy
he had killed for a reward. Now deposits of the hands have been actually
uncovered at Tell el-Daba, Avaris in ancient Egypt.
"Excavations conducted in a Hyksos palace at Tell el-Daba (ancient Avaris) in Egypt have for the first time provided archaeological evidence for a gruesome practice previously known only from texts and temple reliefs. Archaeological investigations led by Manfred Bietak and Irene Forstner-Muller in the northern part of the palace, which in its late phase has been attributed to King Khayan of the 15th Dynasty (c. 1600 B.C.), have uncovered pits containing altogether 16 severed right hands. A narrative found in the tomb of Ahmose, son of Ibana, at Eklab describes how after each battle against the Hyksos at Avaris and Sharuhen, the soldier presented an enemy hand as a trophy and was given as a reward the 'gold of valor'. Among additional evidence from the New Kingdom are representations depicting severed right hands being counted and put into a heap." (Ngo 2014) The hands presumably had to be from an adult male, and from the right side so the presenter could not use both hands from a deceased enemy to get paid twice.
“As narrative battle scenes show, the
right hands had to be presented after the battle, as proof of slain enemies, in
a ceremony in front of the king or the commander in chief. There must have
been, however, also a symbolic connotation in the act of severing the hand. The
Amada and Elephantine stelae of Amenhotep II mention the hanging of the corpses
of six princes of Tahshy, slain by the pharaoh himself, in front of the walls
of Thebes and their hands likewise, meaning that the hands were separately
exposed on the outside of the walls. It would not make sense for counting but
it could have been that severing the right hand deprived the miserable princes
once and forever of their power.” (Bietak 2011) Possibly the displaying of the bodies
and hands was to remind the population of the greatness of their Pharoah.
Until now no archaeological evidence of
this gruesome custom has been found as no battleground of ancient Egypt has
been identified with precision and investigated.” (Bietak 2011) In this instance the
discovery of the hands was not at a battlefield, but at a temple, possibly
presented as a sacrifice.
"A dozen severed hands found in tombs around a 3,500-year-old temple were likely tokens presented to a king of ancient Egypt to prove the valor of his soldiers in battle, a new study found. An new analysis of the site shows the hands, first uncovered in 2011, belonged to at leastd 12 people aged between 14 to 21. The hands were carefully removed from the bodies, likely soon after an enemy's death, before being placed in tombs around the throne room of King Khayan, a Hyksos ruler of Egypt's 15th dynasty." (Guenot 2023)
“Now, by mere chance, evidence of the
presentation of right hands has come to light in the most recent excavation at
Tell el-Daba, ancient Avaris, in autumn 2011. Investigations were resumed in
the northern part of a Hyksos palace which can be attributed in its late phase
to King Khayan of the Fifteenth Dynasty (see: EA 38, pp.38-41). The
north-eastern palace façade with a monumental gate was uncovered and outside
the palace, in front of what seems to be the severely destroyed throne room,
were found two pits, containing one right hand each. In the later palace phase,
these pits were covered by a building added to the outside of the palace façade serving as an annex to a four columned
‘broad-room’ – a building north-east of the palace which may have had a cultic
function. Beyond this building, on top of a former extra-mural silo courtyard
of the early palace phase, two more pits were found containing altogether 14
severed right hands. Some of them were of extraordinary size and
robustness.” (Bietak
2011) These were undoubtedly buried as some sort of sacrifice, or offering to
the gods.
The preponderance of pictorial proof of
this practice is found at the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramesses III in
the Necropolis at Thebes in Upper Egypt across from the city of Luxor. “Scenes of the great pharaoh and his
army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh are represented
on the pylon. Remains of the second court include part of the internal facade
of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war
and the alleged rout of the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In
the upper registers, feast
and honor of the phallic deity Min,God of fertility.” (Wikipedia)
“Ramses
III preserves several representations of counting body parts on the walls of
his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu (ca. 1180 BC). At least four
representations appear in which the Egyptians are counting hands. Some of the
examples depict the counting event with apparently someone to record the tally
behind the one making the pile. Another representation shows someone counting
tongues. Yet another depiction from Medinet Habu is of the Egyptians counting
phalluses.” (Manor
2021) So now we have physical proof of the
practice illustrated so graphically in the temple murals at Medinet Habu.
“The
location, treatment, and possibly the positioning of the severed hands argues
against the hypothesis of law-enforcing punishment as the motivation for these
acts. When contextualised in a transdisciplinary approach to the archaeological
and historic sources, the bioarchaeological evidence presented here suggests
that the severed hands were offered as trophies as part of a public event that
took place in the palace. They belonged to at least eleven males and possibly
one female, which may indicate that women and warfare were not worlds apart. To
the best of the authors’ knowledge, the results put forward in this paper
provide the first direct bioarchaeological evidence for the ‘gold of honour’
ceremony performed in front of the king’s palace and contribute significantly
to the debate over the reconstruction of this ceremony.” (Gresky 2023) This ceremony would have
been for the Pharoah to publicly acknowledge the heroism of his troops, and
reward them for defeating the enemy.
And while this all sounds barbaric to us, let us remember that in North
American history during the French and Indian War both sides paid bounties for
scalps, a practice that lasted in North America for quite some time.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Bietak, Manfred, 2011, The Archaeology of the
Gold of Valour, EES Free University, Berlin.
Gresky, Julia et al., 2023, First osteological
evidence of severed hands in Ancient Egypt, 31 March 2023,
www.nature.com/scientificreports/. Accessed online 16 May 2023.
Guenot, Marianne, 2023, Tombs filled with severed
hands suggest warriors in ancient Egypt mutilated their enemies to get war
trophies, 16 May 2023, Yahoo News, https://news.yahoo.com/. Accessed online
16 May 2023.
Manor,
Dale Dr., 2021, Parts is Parts, 15 January 2021, https://www.patternsofevidence.com. Accessed online 16 May 2023.
Ngo, Robin, 2014, Severed Hands: Trophies of
War in New Kingdom Egypt, 28 February 2014, Biblical Archaeology Review,
March/April 2014.
Wikipedia, Ramesses II, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II.
Accessed online 22 June 2023.
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