Retainer sacrifice in ancient Egypt existed only during the First Dynasty, roughly from 3100 BC to 2900 BC.
Notes on verification
Mainstream scholarly consensus supports confinement to the First Dynasty, corroborated by multiple independent sources including academic work. However, some sources note minor evidence of continuation into the early Second Dynasty, so the 'only' framing is slightly stronger than the nuanced academic view. [tier=unverified indep_score=0.3 clusters=4 claim_tier=notable] [rescored 2026-09-15: curated origin-host map (PR #65); unclassified hosts no longer scored as aggregators]
Sources
- Ancient Egyptian retainer sacrifices (wikipedia)
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ancient-egypt-afterlife-human-sacrifice-shabti (corroboration)
- https://www.jacobusvandijk.nl/docs/Retainer_Sacr.pdf (corroboration)
- https://www.historyoftheancientworld.com/2014/08/did-the-ancient-egyptians-practice-human-sacrifice/ (corroboration)
- https://peoplingthepast.com/2020/10/16/blog-post-5-to-make-sacred-human-sacrifice-in-the-ancient-world/ (corroboration)