Dozen Severed Hands Found in Hyksos Palace Courtyard Could Be Due To Gruesome Human Trophy-Taking Ritual by Foreign Invaders

A gruesome sight was discovered in Egypt and could be the remains of a grisly ancient Greek ceremony.

Pit of Severed Hands Discovered

It is noticeable how inscriptions of Egyptian tombs and temples include mutilated or amputated hands. It reported started as early as New Kingdom from the 16th to 11th centuries BCE. Archeologists and authors of a new study had found actual evidence of amputated hands in Egypt, Science Alert reported.

A dozen severed hands were piled in the courtyard of the Hyksos palace at Avaris/Tell el-Dab'a in northeastern Egypt. The researcher believed it resulted from foreign invaders' gruesome "trophy-taking" ritual.

Human trophy taking is an Amerindian practice of taking and displaying various human body parts as trophies, according to Springer. The collection of human trophies was to demonstrate dominance over the deceased by taking severed ears, teeth, shrunken heads, or skull cups.

According to the study's authors, the hands belonged to at least 11 males and maybe one female, suggesting that women and warfare were not poles apart. The German and Austrian study teams added that the finding of numerous fragmentary hands and fingers indicates that there may have been as many as 18 hands.

The researchers examined the right hands discovered in 2011 and were buried in three different pits in the courtyard of the Hyksos palace at Avaris/Tell el-Dab'a in northeastern Egypt.

The researchers, led by paleopathologist Julia Gresky of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, first looked at taphonomic explanations for the hands' specific positioning. After death, bodies and body parts are examined by taphonomy to evaluate the processes of preservation, decomposition, and fossilization.

The researchers believe the severed hands may have been placed on purpose, even though it is typical for human parts to drift apart over time, be forcefully separated by flood or scavenger, or progressively separated by weathering and erosion.

The authors note that the hands were buried with their fingers widely spread, primarily on their palmar sides, after any associated pieces of the forearm were removed.

What Happened to the Mutated Hands?

Six of the 12 hands analyzed had intact proximal row carpal bones, a group of 8 tiny bones in the wrist that connects hands to forearms. Researchers believe the hands were purposefully severed by slicing through the joint capsule and then cutting through the tendons that connect the wrist because no lower arm bone fragments were discovered.

Severing the arm at any anatomical point is a common method of mutilating people without consideration for their survival.

This approach is fast and simple. It also leaves a portion of the lower arm still linked to the hand. If this were the case, individuals presenting them or those in charge of the event would have given enough thought to their presentation to separate parts of the lower arm.

The fact that the hands were still "soft and pliable" when they were found in the pits, as described by the researchers, suggests that they were either buried before the onset of rigor mortis or shortly after it had already passed.

Rigor mortis starts a few hours after death, peaks at 12 to 24 hours, and - depending on elements like humidity, temperature, and the age and physical condition of the deceased - typically dissipates within 1 to 3 days.

Rigomortis of the hand typically starts 6 to 8 hours after death, though onset differs for various body parts. The experts concluded that the bodies were probably dismembered during or just before a ritual, with the hands being buried in the pit once rigor mortis had set in.

The results of the study were published in Nature.

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