Warrior princesses of ancient Egypt

July 17, 2026

Warrior princesses of ancient Egypt

July 17, 2026—A dark cloud of volcanic ash is spreading on Mars, cyclosporiasis is linked to Taco Bell lettuce, and we reveal exclusive glimpses of the mysterious Sunda clouded leopard.

—Andrea Gawrylewski

Chief Newsletter Editor

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A wooden dagger with a half-moon-shaped handle, embellished with multicolored geometric designs.

A dagger buried with Princess Ita Sameh. Abdel Mohsen/Egyptian Museum

Warrior Princesses

Egyptologists examined remains of royal Egyptian princesses who had been buried with weapons beside them to get a sense of what kinds of lives the women lived. By looking at the princesses’ internal bone structure and muscle attachment sites, as well as by analyzing chemical signatures left on the remains, the scientists determined that the weapons were not ceremonial: these Egyptian princesses were likely trained in the use of daggers and in archery.

The details: Princess Ita’s tomb was discovered at the site of Dahshur, south of Cairo, and dates to around 1900 B.C.E. She was buried with a striking dagger, embellished with gold and lapis lazuli. An examination of her remains showed that her muscle attachments “strongly reflect the habitual gripping of weapons like daggers or maces,” says Zeinab Hashesh, lead author of the new analysis and an associate professor in the department of Egyptology at Beni-Suef University in Egypt. The skeleton of another royal lady, Princess Noub-Hotep, shows tell-tale signs of an archer’s grip, the scientists say, including “a unique bowing” of a hand bone, a feature that Hashesh sees as evidence of having to draw a bow. The remains of Princess Itaweret, also discovered in Dahshur, appeared to have survived “significant trauma” to her ribs and feet bones, “indicating a high-risk, active lifestyle.”

What the experts say: “These findings challenge the traditional view that elite Egyptian women led passive, sedentary lives,” says Hashesh. “[The study] reveals a royal court that was a disciplined environment where women were resilient, trained and powerful actors.”

A satellite image of the surface of Mars. The right half of the image is covered in darkness.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Martian Shadow

In April, the European Space Agency released this stunning image showing surprising changes in Mars’s Utopia Planitia basin, which is thought to be the site of a long-vanished sea. The image shows volcanic minerals from Mars’s deep past blanketing the planet’s red rusted sands. A side-by-side comparison with a view of the same patch from 1976 shows that the volcanic ash is spreading startlingly fast.

Why this is interesting: Visible changes to the Martian surface are more often marked by millions of years, not by dozens of them. But this isn’t the first time observers have witnessed strange waves of darkness spreading on Mars. The rapid spread might be explained by Mars’ strong winds.

New views: The new picture also captures shadowy fractures and pits that hint at large volumes of water ice still buried underneath the planet’s surface, as well as numerous impact craters surrounded by the detritus of their own explosive formation. “Each new image represent[s] another clue in the enduring mystery of the Red Planet’s long-lost, more Earth-like past,” writes SciAm reporter Joe Howlett. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor

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RECOMMENDED READS

Every Friday in summer we're recommending a great, freshly-published science read. Tell us what you're reading, or if you try any of our recommendations!

Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World

By Katherine Dunn. Bloomsbury, June 16, 2026.

Like Rome, GPS was not built in a day. Through key historical touchpoints like World War II, the launch of Sputnik, and the Russian-Ukrainian war, Little Blue Dot introduces readers to the blood, sweat, and tears that launched a massive grid of transmitters to the sky, and how it became the ubiquitous infrastructure it is today. With clever and captivating prose, journalist Katherine Dunn brings to life the engineers, financiers and yes, military contractors, who built and improved GPS. It’s a technology we take for granted in 2026, but GPS has a long, winding history. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor

In light of findings that suggest that Egyptian royal women were trained in weaponry, that women likely controlled much of Viking economy, and that prehistoric women were probably hunters, it seems about time to amend our traditional ideas of "women in history." Archeological surprises continually emerge, and our assumptions can't seem to keep pace.

Thanks for reading Today in Science this week! Send any other questions or feedback on this newsletter to newsletters@sciam.com. Have a lovely weekend.

—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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