Senebkay - a Forensic Examination of a Violent End

     As the ARCE meeting continued, Jane Hill (Rowan University) next delivered a paper entitled "The Death of King Senebkay: Forensic Anthropological Examination of a Violent End" in which she discussed the examination of this obscure king's body.

     An examination of what is left of Senebkay’s body shows that be died in combat.  Forensic experts concluded that the Pharaoh was between thirty-five and forty when he was killed and that he stood between five feet five inches and five feet nine inches in life. Mild porosities in the orbital bones of his skull indicates that he was anemic and that he suffered from degenerative joint problems. The body had numerous trauma’s on it, some of which had been healing for three to six month’s before he was killed in combat. Possibly he had been injured in an earlier battle and had time to heal prior to being killed in a later battle. 

     The analysis of Senebkay’s body indicates that he regularly rode on the back of the horse (the earliest example of this I am aware of in Egypt). During his final moments he had one of his feet cut off by someone standing below him (possibly someone on foot tried to unhorse him). After falling to the ground he was struck several blows, one of which penetrated through the skull and into his brain tissue. The forensic experts also concluded that the Pharaoh’s body had extensively decayed before mummification took place.