The Zombies of Yesteryear

We credit the ancient Egyptians with many things, not the least of which is construction of those massive pyramids. Often overlooked, however, is that fact that, some 5,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians repelled the first zombie uprising in recorded history. Were it not for their resolve and understanding of how, exactly, to deal with the walking dead, human civilization may have fizzled out just as it was getting started.

Max Brooks first documented the attack in his book The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, describing a British expedition which had discovered an ancient body infected with the zombie virus inside a tomb at Hierakonpolis. The walls of the tomb were covered with scratch marks as if from fruitless attempts by this zombie to escape. More recent work at the site has borne this theory out, disclosing numerous decapitated corpses. Such headless burials date back into the earliest reaches of pre-Dynastic Egypt, and seem to indicate that zombie uprisings were a very real threat. The infected dead were apparently routinely decapitated, judging from the standard location and extreme force behind wounds to the spinal column, though the threat was not as widespread as it could have been, with only some 4% of the bodies in a given cemetery receiving this treatment. This is all theory at the moment. But archaeologists are working (hopefully very, very carefully) with some preserved brains found inside one of the severed head to discover once and for all if these were people infected with the zombie virus. Personally, I think those brains should have been destroyed immediately; they're far to dangerous to monkey about with. Fortunately, they do have contingency plans in place, and at least one of the physical anthropologists "wouldn't hesitate to lop off the head of any member of the team at any time, and for any reason." This kind of paranoid overreaction may be the only thing that saves us from annihilation