*Written by Lark Devon, author of adult fantasy romance where the research shows. Published September 21, 2026.*
**Short answer:** First Dynasty royal cemeteries at Abydos contain named and unnamed people in subsidiary chambers around royal tombs, including women whose exact relationships and roles are often impossible to recover. The evidence shows an organized funerary program and changing royal scale, while leaving the cause and timing of death open to case-by-case interpretation.
Who were the women buried around Egypt's first kings? Every time I hit one of their names in the excavation catalogue, sitting next to a wall of blank spaces, I wanted the rest of her story a little more.
## What did subsidiary burial mean at Abydos?
Umm el-Qa'ab, the royal cemetery at Abydos, was built around central royal tombs. Smaller chambers clustered nearby, creating a powerful architectural statement about the king's household and the reach of the burial program. The practice begins under Aha, reaches its largest known scale under Djer, declines afterward, and ends with Qa'a.
But the numbers need a little care. The University of Chicago catalogue records Aha's two named women, Sema-nebty and Bener-ib, alongside roughly thirty-four unnamed individuals. Djer's complex has about 318 subsidiary burials in the catalogue's account. Some small chambers served as magazines, and the Donkey Enclosure shows that animal burials also belong to the cemetery record.
I love the donkey-shaped interruption. It keeps me from reading every chamber as tragic and human.
## Who were the women around the first kings?
The surviving evidence offers names, stelae, sealings, pottery, placement, and sometimes age or sex determinations. Those clues can identify people and activities in fragments. They do not provide a complete household roster or a reliable list of marriages, jobs, and private loyalties.
That is why “royal woman,” “attendant,” and “subsidiary burial” need to stay separate. A named woman can be important without being identified as a queen. An unnamed burial can belong to a royal household without supplying a title. The surviving evidence shows patterns more clearly than it names the people in them.
## What does Meret-Neith change?
Meret-Neith's complex is the essential exception to any simple story about women near royal tombs. She received a monumental central tomb at Abydos, surrounded by exterior rows of subsidiary chambers. A peer-reviewed 2023 field report describes a central part and 41 subsidiary chambers, with 27 excavated during that season.
Her status and exact place in the timeline are still being worked out. The scale and arrangement make her complex distinctive. They do not justify labeling every surrounding person a queen, or turning one exceptional monument into a rule for every First Dynasty woman.
Modern excavation matters too. Petrie's early work and the 2021–23 re-excavation give us different layers of documentation and interpretation. An excavation report documents ancient remains and modern methods. I can use the report to map what was built, but it won't tell me who shared a private joke beside the tomb.
## Does archaeology prove live burial?
People have long read the arrangement around a royal tomb as proof retainers were killed to go with the king. The architecture and clustering can establish association and chronology more confidently than the exact manner or timing of death. A coordinated program is visible, though each chamber's method still has to be judged on its own evidence.
“Buried alive” is a vivid phrase that often goes further than the remains. Physical cause of death requires case-by-case evidence, and the surviving evidence does not support a blanket claim about strangulation, poisoning, or simultaneous death for every chamber.
I went into this section hoping for one clean cause of death. What I got was solid architecture and cases that still won't resolve into a single answer.
## Myth vs. Reality
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| Every small tomb held a woman. | Some chambers were magazines, and animal burials are recorded. |
| Every woman was a queen or a disposable servant. | Titles, names, age, sex, and placement survive unevenly. |
| Archaeology proves everyone was buried alive. | Association is clearer than cause and timing of death. |
| Meret-Neith's complex is simply a king's tomb with a female label. | It is a distinctive complex with a central monument and 41 subsidiary chambers. |
The record becomes clearer when names, architecture, and uncertainty are kept in their own lanes.
> [!lore] Thirty-seven attendants lie silent. The thirty-eighth is still asking questions. *House of Silence* is now available on Lark Devon. [Enter the tomb →](https://larkdevon.com/storytime/story/house-of-silence)
## How I Used This in House of Silence
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I stole the cemetery's frustrating precision for *House of Silence*. Mudbrick monuments, sealings, vessels, textiles, food, and disrupted chambers can tell a reader where power gathered. My fictional tomb places a limestone-cut interior inside that Egyptian-inspired pressure rather than claiming to reproduce Umm el-Qa'ab. The archaeology cannot tell Henuti what a dead woman said before the door closed. That gap gives the story its pressure.
I also kept the uncertainty working. A named woman is not automatically a beloved, and a subsidiary burial is not a neat job description. Henuti has to move through a world where rank is visible while private truth has been sealed away. Archaeology gave me the architecture. The novel has to supply the dangerous human choices.
I used the archaeology to make missing private truth a pressure inside the story.
## What Henuti Thinks
*Henuti has spent fifteen years keeping a royal household in order. Give her a catalogue of Abydos burials and she will find the missing labels before breakfast.*
---
If a chamber has a name, then someone took the trouble to preserve that name. I understand the labor. I have tied cords, counted jars, and remembered which woman preferred sesame oil warmed in the sun. A person can vanish from a list while the work of knowing her remains in another person's hands.
The catalogue gives two names beside Aha, Sema-nebty and Bener-ib. It gives other people no names at all. I would like to ask who sorted the stelae. I would like to ask who decided which lives required a mark. Such questions are improper. They are also useful.
Meret-Neith has a central tomb and forty-one chambers around it. That is an arrangement a servant can understand. Someone planned the rooms, measured the rows, carried vessels, sealed doors, and checked the work. The monument speaks of authority. It does not tell me whether the woman inside was obeyed, loved, feared, or merely recorded.
People enjoy saying “buried alive” as though the phrase completes the task. It does not. I have spent too long correcting inventories to accept a dramatic label where the evidence has withheld one.
The king's tomb may keep its secrets. The chambers keep theirs. I can still lay out the vessels, read the sealings, and remember the women whose names were not written. That is a household duty. It is also the beginning of disobedience.
> [!lore] A sealed royal tomb, a presence in the dark, and a woman asking for a future of her own. Read *House of Silence* on Lark Devon. [Start with the free first chapter.](https://larkdevon.com/storytime/story/house-of-silence)
## Related Questions
**Were all subsidiary burials around kings human?**
No. The University of Chicago catalogue notes storage magazines and animal burials, including the Donkey Enclosure. Chamber counts therefore require attention to function.
**Were Sema-nebty and Bener-ib queens?**
The surviving evidence identifies them as named women associated with Aha's complex. It does not establish a precise relationship or a queen title.
**How many subsidiary chambers did Meret-Neith have?**
The 2023 field report describes 41 chambers, with 27 excavated during that season. The complex remains under archaeological analysis.
**Does Abydos prove simultaneous death?**
The coordinated arrangement supports a funerary program. The exact timing and cause of death require case-by-case evidence.
## Related Reading
- [Why Did Egypt's First Kings Take Their Retainers to the Grave?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/why-did-egypts-first-kings-take-their-retainers-to-the-grave)
- [Were Egypt's Royal Retainers Buried Alive? What Archaeology Can Actually Tell Us](https://larkdevon.com/blog/were-egypts-royal-retainers-buried-alive)
- [Inside a First Dynasty Royal Tomb: What Was Sealed in the Dark?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/inside-a-first-dynasty-royal-tomb)
- [What First Dynasty Tombs Reveal About Status in Life and Death](https://larkdevon.com/blog/what-first-dynasty-tombs-reveal-about-status)
- [Why Did Egyptians Make a Corpse-Eating Jackal Guardian of the Dead?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/why-did-egyptians-make-a-corpse-eating-jackal-guardian)
- [How Old Is Anubis? Tracing a God Across Three Thousand Years](https://larkdevon.com/blog/how-old-is-anubis)
- [Did Anubis Always Weigh the Heart? How His Role Changed Over Time](https://larkdevon.com/blog/did-anubis-always-weigh-the-heart)
- [Anubis and Wepwawet: How to Tell Egypt's Two Jackal Gods Apart](https://larkdevon.com/blog/anubis-and-wepwawet-how-to-tell-egypts-two-jackal-gods-apart)
- [Sex, Death, and Resurrection in Egyptian Religion: What the Evidence Really Dates To](https://larkdevon.com/blog/sex-death-and-resurrection-in-egyptian-religion-what-the-evidence-really-dates-to)
## Sources
1. Günter Dreyer, “Abydos, Ägypten: Die Königsgräber der 1. und 2. Dynastie,” *e-Forschungsberichte des DAI*, 2014, published record 2023, [DOI](https://doi.org/10.34780/l6ma-3b97).
2. E. Christiana Köhler, Peter Ferschin, Amber Hood, Friederike Junge, Bálint István Kovács, and Mathilde Minotti, “A Preliminary Report of New Archaeological Fieldwork at the Tomb of Queen Meret-Neith of the 1st Dynasty at Abydos, Umm el-Qa'ab,” *Ägypten und Levante* 33 (2023), [DOI](https://doi.org/10.1553/AEundL33s21).
3. Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago, *Catalog of Objects*, “Subsidiary Burials of the First Dynasty,” accessed 2026. [OIMP 33 PDF](https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/Publications/OIMP/oimp33.pdf).
4. William M. Flinders Petrie, *The Royal Tombs of Abydos*, Part II, Egypt Exploration Fund, 1901, [Oxford Griffith Institute collection](https://egyptartefacts.griffith.ox.ac.uk/marks/abydos-royal-tombs/).