A dozen severed hands found piled in the courtyard of an ancient Egyptian palace could be the result of a gruesome 'trophy-taking' ritual by a foreign invader, according to a new study.
According to the German and Austrian research team, the severed hands found in the pits come from a minimum of 12 adults, although the discovery of multiple incomplete hands and fingers mean there could have existed up to 18 hands in total.
Led by paleopathologist Julia Gresky from the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, the team first considered taphonomic causes for the particular placement of the severed hands.examines bodies and body parts after death, assessing preservation, decomposition, and fossilization processes. While it's not uncommon for body parts to drift apart over time, separated violently by flood or scavenger, or gradually by weathering and erosion, the researchers think the severed hands might have been deliberately placed.
"After removing any attached parts of the forearm, the hands were placed in the ground with wide-splayed fingers, mainly on their palmar sides," the authorsProximal row carpal bones, a set of 8 small bones in the wrist that connect hands to forearms, were found to be intact in 6 of the 12 hands examined.
"Mutilating people without regard to their survival is often done by severing the arm at any anatomical position," Gresky and colleagues"This method is faster and easier, but it leaves a section of the lower arm attached to the hand.
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