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

Sameh Abdel Mohsen / Egyptian Museum In the opening scene of the 2001 blockbuster film The Mummy Returns, two women of Egypt’s royal court engage in spectacular hand-to-hand combat. The scene is dramatic rather than historical, but it raises an interesting question: were Egyptian women really trained with weapons, similarly to Viking shieldmaidens? A new study of royal skeletons, published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, suggests there may be an element of truth to this idea. The…