Warrior princesses of ancient Egypt? Skeletons show women used the weapons buried with them

New research suggests the royal women of ancient Egypt were trained archers. The Conversation reports on a study analyzing skeletons of five princesses and one king buried around 4,000 years ago at Dahshur, south of Cairo, part of Pharaoh Amenemhat II's family group. These members of the Twelfth Dynasty were interred with weapons including bows, maces, and ornate daggers, and skeletal analysis suggests they actually used them. The women's bones bear distinctive marks of repetitive archery: pronounced muscle attachments in the hands and forearms consistent with the high-intensity gripping and pulling needed to draw a bow. Princess Noub-Hotep offers the clearest evidence, with hand-bone deformations and arrows among her burial goods. Healed fractures on the skeletons further suggest a more physically demanding life than traditionally imagined for ancient elites. This research challenges the assumption that weaponry belonged only to elite men, revealing royal women as skilled warriors—and positioning them as active agents in Egypt's history, not passive figures in the archaeological record.

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