Wooden sarcophagi during the unveiling of an ancient treasure of more than 100 sarcophagi.
Saqqara:
Egypt announced on Saturday the discovery of an ancient treasure of more than 100 intact sarcophagi, this year’s biggest find.
The sealed wooden coffins, unveiled on site with fanfare, belonged to high officials of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods of ancient Egypt.
They were found in three burial shafts at depths of 12 meters (40 feet) in the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo.
Archaeologists have opened a coffin to reveal a mummy wrapped in a burial shroud adorned with colorful hieroglyphic pictorials.
Saqqara is the burial site of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The huge find came just over a month after archaeologists in the area found 59 other well-preserved and sealed wooden coffins dating back more than 2,500 years.
“Saqqara has not yet revealed all of its contents. It is a treasure,” Antiquities and Tourism Minister Khaled al-Anany said during the unveiling ceremony.
“The excavations are still in progress. Every time we empty a funeral pit of sarcophagi, we find an entrance for another.
More than 40 statues of ancient deities and burial masks have also been unearthed, he said.
They will be distributed in several museums in Egypt, including the Grand Egyptian Museum still open on the Giza plateau.
The minister attributed the wave of finds in Saqqara to extensive excavation work in recent years.
Another find in the vast necropolis is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, he added.
Archaeologists are also hoping to find a former workshop for making wooden mummies coffins soon, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Egypt hopes the archaeological finds will boost tourism, a sector that has suffered multiple shocks from a 2011 uprising to today’s coronavirus pandemic.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
