A 3,300-year-old whistle sheds light on ancient Egyptian royal security.

In 2008, while a group of archaeologists with the Amarna Project were excavating at Akhetaten (present-day Amarna, the ancient Egyptian capital founded by Akhenaten , father of King Tutankhamun), they discovered a 3,300-year-old whistle carved from the leg bone of a cow. It's the first bone whistle found in ancient Egypt and was likely used by a police officer guarding workers at a royal tomb, Live Science reports.

It had not been analyzed until recently, despite having been discovered more than a decade ago. The ancient city of Amarna is famous for its founder, Pharaoh Akhenaten (whose period corresponds to the Amarna period), who banned the worship of the numerous Egyptian gods, except for Aten, the sun disk. However, the capital, founded around 1347 BC, only lasted about 15 years and was abandoned after the pharaoh's death. Later, King Tutankhamun reintroduced the Egyptian pantheon to the kingdom.

The whistle is a very modest artifact and sheds light on the activities of the city's inhabitants (who did not belong to the upper classes and royalty). It has a single perforated hole and fits in the palm of the hand. In an experiment, researchers made a replica from a fresh cow 's leg bone and discovered that the natural shape of the bone's end creates the perfect surface to rest the lower lip on and blow through the hole.

In particular, the whistle was found in a structure the team had interpreted as a sort of checkpoint for people entering and exiting, so the theory that it could have been used by a policeman or guard makes more sense. At Deir el-Medina —the village of the mortuary workers in the Valley of the Kings —the workers were similarly guarded. Other New Kingdom artifacts, such as texts and images, reveal that the Egyptians had police officers known as "medjay."

The natural shape of the bone end creates the perfect surface to rest the lower lip and blow through the hole.

According to excavation sources, the Medjay were a semi-nomadic group native to the desert region, renowned for their elite military skills. Other clues suggest that the newly discovered whistle was used by a police officer. For example, the decorated tomb of Mahu, chief of police at ancient Amarna, had previously been discovered in the area, and in his tomb, a scene depicts police arresting men attempting to sneak into the city.

In the tomb itself, there is another image showing a group of sentries standing watch from what could be checkpoints. The whistle is similar to those carved from bone in Stone Age Europe. After ruling out the possibility that it could have belonged to a game piece, the archaeologists confirmed that they were documenting the earliest known whistle from Ancient Egypt.

While much attention has been paid to the tombs and monuments built by the pharaohs , we still know relatively little about their common people. Sites like Amarna are so important because they document the lives not only of the pharaoh and his court, but also of ordinary people.