4,000-Year-Old Ancient Egyptian Handprint Discovered On “Soul House” Tomb Offering

Despite all that we’ve discovered about those who lived thousands of years ago, it can sometimes feel difficult to imagine them as real people. However, we’ve now been served up with a (literally) handy reminder, after researchers discovered a 4,000-year-old handprint on the base of what’s believed to be an ancient Egyptian tomb offering.

The rare finding was made by a team at Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum, in the UK, who uncovered the surprisingly complete handprint on the bottom of a clay model sculpted into the shape of a building, with open spaces interspersed by pillars and a tiny staircase leading up its outer edge.

This model, estimated to have been created sometime between 2055 to 1650 BCE, is what’s known as a “soul house”. This relates to the fact that they have typically been found within burial sites, where they’re thought to have acted either as some sort of home within which the soul of the deceased can live, or as an offering tray – in this case, featuring bread, lettuce, and an ox’s head.

According to the team behind the discovery, it’s unusual to find such complete marks left behind by the people who made these objects. 

“We've spotted traces of fingerprints left in wet varnish or on a coffin in the decoration, but it is rare and exciting to find a complete handprint underneath this soul house. This was left by the maker who touched it before the clay dried,” explained Helen Strudwick, the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Senior Egyptologist, in a statement sent to IFLScience. “I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before.”

With this finding, it’s hoped that we can begin to understand more about not just how such artifacts were made, but also the craftspeople behind their creation.

“You can just imagine the person who made this, picking it up to move it out of the workshop to dry before firing. Things like this take you directly to the moment when the object was made and to the person who made it,” said Strudwick, who has curated a brand-new exhibition at the museum, Made in Ancient Egypt, with the purpose of showing who the artifact-makers of ancient Egypt were.

Unfortunately for the person who left the handprint behind on this soul house, it’s possible that they might not have been viewed particularly positively by their fellow Egyptians – at least, if the satirical text known as the Teaching of Khety is to be believed. Thought to be a critique of class and labor in ancient Egypt, the author compares potters with pigs, claiming that potters are the muddier of the two.

Personally, we don’t see that as an insult – they probably had fantastic skin.

The soul house will be on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, from October 3, as part of the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition.