Abydos

A relief in the temple of Ahmose I in Abydos features a pile of detached hands on the battlefield.

Ahmose I, the pharaoh who eventually forced the last of the Hyksos out of Egypt, “had a heap of hands depicted on the wall of his temple at Abydos,” Bietak says.

The structure could help "reestablish the sense of the ancient landscape of Abydos before the construction of the Ramses II temple," the head of the mission, Sameh Iskander, was quoted as saying.

Two decades ago at Abydos, in southern Egypt, the skeletons of 10 donkeys, dating from 3100 B.C., were excavated outside the funerary enclosure of the first pharaohs.

Abydos is located about 280 miles south of Cairo, near the city of Sohag, itself located on the west bank of the Nile.