How China’s macabre practice of human sacrifice in burials came to an end

Archaeologists have long found a disturbing pattern in the graves of ancient rulers: the dead were sometimes accompanied by other dead. Around royal tombs, the remains of people – who appear to have been killed specifically to follow their masters into the afterlife – lie alongside precious objects and weapons. A new study from Egypt has brought this practice back into the news. At the ancient royal cemetery of Abydos, archaeologists re-examined the skulls of people buried around the tombs of...