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The ancient Egyptians had complex beliefs about what would happen after death. They did everything they could to protect and preserve the bodies of their dead, as they believed the bodies were necessary for life after death. These human remains have received various types of attention. Previously, they were often completely ignored and thrown aside in favour of the objects with which they were found; now they are carefully collected and studied.
There are several collections in museums worldwide that include human remains (mummies and skeletons) from ancient Egypt. Even small local museums with no other links to Egyptology may hold some ancient Egyptian remains, including the West Berkshire Museum in south-east England. But why are there so many ancient Egyptian skulls in these collections, and what can they tell us about the lives of the deceased individuals?
Collecting skulls
Many know Sir Flinders Petrie as ‘The Father of Pots’ because of his work classifying the finds from the Predynastic Period. He did this by using tiny changes in the patterns of pottery found in graves to chart the development of different types of pottery. Like many people of his time, Petrie was also interested in eugenics (the discredited theory that humans can be improved by selective breeding), and collected human skulls in order to look for changes of skull shape to represent racial differences.
Petrie studied the skeletal remains he excavated at Naqada, Hawara, and other sites. While he was digging in Hawara, Petrie had a storeroom he called the ‘skullery’ where he stored skulls that he took from mummies whose wrappings he deemed not to be useful. This study of skulls was considered a sophisticated step away from phrenology, the reading of a person’s characteristics from their skull morphology. At UCL, Petrie and his great friend Francis Galton established this new study of skulls intended to show racial difference and superiority as a subject called ‘biometrics’. This influenced the collecting habits of many at the time, including Harold Peake who was then curator at Newbury Museum (now known as West Berkshire Museum).
Harold Peake did not share the eugenicist views of Petrie, but was still very interested in the development of humanity. This is illustrated by a quote from his obituary written in 1946:
Peake’s Museum at Newbury was unique in its arrangement. The arrangement of forms of man was traced up to man, he being represented by a mirror with Homo sapiens written over the top so that the visitor might realise himself as the product of evolution.
Skull NEBYM:1914.4
Peake was in Cairo in 1914 collecting Egyptian antiquities for the Newbury Museum. At some point, he took a journey south and visited Abusir. It is possible he visited the ‘Bonnet Cemetery’ – named after Hans Bonnet, a German Egyptologist who had excavated it in 1910. This is an Early Dynastic cemetery, north-west of Saqqara. Egyptian archaeologist Huleil Ghali re-excavated it in the 1980s and determined that the area belonged to lesser officials. There is no definitive proof, however, that the skull in the Newbury collection with the accession number NEBYM:1914.4 came from that cemetery – this is just conjecture. Without associated artefacts or carbon-14 dating, it is impossible to date the skull accurately. It is possible that it could be modern, although the state of dentition suggests it is from ancient Egypt.
Skull NEBYM:1914.4 was examined in September 2024. The right zygomatic arch (cheekbone) has become detached in recent times and is kept with the rest of the skull. Most of the incisors are missing, except for the left mandibular (bottom jaw) incisor 2. The left mandibular premolar is also missing.
Age at death
This has been assessed using the wear on the molars and the eruption of the third molar. Both suggest an age of between 17 and 25 years at the time of death. It should be noted that the third mandibular molars are still settling in place. These are the last teeth in the jaw, the furthest from the chin. This settling can happen up to the age of 50, but as there is only a small amount of wear on the teeth, particularly the ones that erupted closest to the time of death, this suggests a younger age. Also, none of the cranial sutures on top of the head are fully closed. As these begin to heal once a person reaches their 50s, it confirms that the skull belonged to a younger person.
Sex
‘Sex’ is different from ‘gender’ in the archaeological record. Sex describes the biological data gleaned from the remains. In general, male skulls tend to be more robust – bigger and with more-pronounced muscle attachments. Female skulls tend to be more gracile – smaller and with less-pronounced muscle attachments. This skull has strong female morphological (shape) traits. The only traits that could be masculine are the attachments of the temporalis muscle (the chewing muscle).
Signs of illness
There are small holes in the eye sockets of the skull, indicative of illness. This phenomenon is called cribra orbitalia and is thought to be related to changes in blood vessels. It used to be thought that it is caused by anaemia, but recent research has linked it to stress from illness. A PhD study to determine its cause is currently under way at the University of Reading.
The small holes pitted into the top of the skull are a condition known as porotic hyperostosis. This sponge-like appearance is caused by anaemia, so perhaps the cribra orbitalia is related to anaemia. The cause of the anaemia is unknown: it could be an adaptation to a low-iron diet, a reaction to a sudden reduction in meat consumption, or even sickle-cell anaemia.
NEBYM:1914.4 had dental crowding in her jaw. Her left canine grew up to overlap her left second mandibular incisor. There is a small amount of calculus (white, crusty material) here; this is built up due to the deposition of food around the overlapping teeth.
There are horizontal ridges on the base and above the root of some of the teeth. These are called dental enamel hypoplasia, and show that NEBYM:1914.4’s teeth temporarily stopped growing during several periods of physical stress while she was growing up, such as might be caused by illness, scarcity of food, or poor diet.
Post-mortem damage
Post-mortem damage shows up as white areas on the skull. This is because the bone is not living when the damage happens and cannot have further mineral deposition. When people are alive, their bones are a pinkish colour; white bone, caused by the absence of a blood supply, appears only after death.
Cracking on the frontal and parietal bones of the cranium indicates possible weathering and exposure at some time after death. It was probably made more likely because the bone’s strength had been reduced by the porotic hyperostosis mentioned above. This condition causes the bones of the cranial vault to become spongy or porous. It is possible the cracking was caused by sun exposure, if the skull was partially uncovered for some time.
There should be protuberances called occipital condyles on the base of the skull where the skull articulates with the spine, but, in this case, they have been sawn off. These areas are white compared to the rest of the skull, so it may have happened when the mummy was first found: Petrie and others collecting skulls often did this to remove the skull from the body. However, from the angle of the cut, it seems they were more likely to have been cut to facilitate display, and to stop wobbling while on show.
There should be protuberances… on the base of the skull… but in this case, these have been sawn off.
The life and death of NEBYM:1914.4
This skull is of a young female, who probably died before she was 25. While growing up she suffered from episodes of ill health that were severe enough to stunt the enamel of her teeth: this could have been caused by poor diet, starvation or illness. There is evidence for iron-deficiency anaemia, which could be what is reflected in the tooth enamel. Her diet was quite tough to chew, as evidenced by the robustness of the attachments for her chewing muscles. While it is likely she ate a great deal of bread, it did not stick to her teeth to produce caries, but did cause wear. This suggests that the bread was high in fibre, but contained a large quantity of sand, as would be expected. This paucity of diet could indicate an earlier, pharaonic, date for the skull.
Her skull experienced some weathering after death, as is shown by the splits in its top. These appear to be post-mortem damage and show no signs of having been present during life. The parts of her skull that attach to her spine have been removed – this is clearly post-mortem, as the cuts are white and clean. This was done either to remove the skull from the rest of her body, or for storage/display purposes. Her skull was presumably included in the following display, recorded on p.9 of Harold Peake’s 1920 Guide to the Collections of the West Berkshire Museum:
Skulls
At the end of the room there is a case displaying some Skulls of typical Craniates. Like the case for Plants, it is arranged on a Phylogenetic plan, the lowest being on the bottom shelf, while the highest, Man and the Anthropoid Apes, are at the top. The blue strips again indicate the lines of descent.
The skull is currently in storage at West Berkshire Museum, where a prayer was said offering her ka beer and bread.
Further reading:
• J Miller (2008) An Appraisal of the Skulls and Dentition of Ancient Egyptians, Highlighting the Pathology and Speculating on the Influence of Diet and Environment (BAR Publishing).
• S Ikram et al. (2015) Egyptian Bioarchaeology: humans, animals, and the environment (Sidestone Press).
• R David and R Forshaw (2023) Medicine and Healing Practices in Ancient Egypt (Liverpool University Press).
Rachel Cotton is a mature student studying for an MA in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. She previously obtained an MSc in Museum Studies from Leicester University and worked as a museum curator. You can read her article on Carter’s linen tunic in AE 140.
All NEBYM1914.4 images: © West Berkshire Museum
