Greg Reeder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "The discovery of burials belonging to soldiers
> and mercenaries, who had elevated status in the
> wartime society, are even rarer, according to
> Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the
> American University in Cairo.
> Only "a handful" have ever been unearthed, Ikram
> said.
> "It shows that there were a lot of warriors that
> had been in use," she said.
>
>
> What does this sentence mean? "It shows that
> there were a lot of warriors that had been in
> use," she said.

The rest of the quote implies that these warriors possibly formed a distinct elite group, I think. Ikram is stated to have said, in full:

"It shows that there were a lot of warriors that had been in use," she said.

"Because of their prominence in calming things down [after the civil war], they probably were wealthier and regarded with more honor than in early periods, and that is why they had nice burials."

Source:National Geographic

I don't think the staffs imply more that they were of noble status and/or that Iker may have been a vernerable man of age in death. The use of a staff tends to imply authority - either political or wisdom due to age. As stated many years later in the The Dedicatory Stela of Seti I for his Father, Ramses I at Abydos:

Nobles powerful (because of) their condition
Their forms rest within the Necropolis.
No one attacked the likenesses of their bodily forms.
No one complained, from when the people were as children
Until they rested in the grave in old age,
they walked as possessors of dignity.*

*For older men walking with sticks as a sign of prestige and honour. (Schott 1964: 28, Sec. 20, n. 8, for /nb.w iAw.t/).

Reference:

Schott, S. 1964. Der Denkstein Sethos' I für die Kapelle Ramses' I in Abydos. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I Philologisch-Historische Klasse. 1964/1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom