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Egypt Unveils Scores of Ancient Coffi ns, Statues Found in Saqqara

EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS HAVE ANNOUNCED Grand Egyptian Museum that Egypt is building

the discovery of at least 100 ancient coffi ns – some near the Giza Pyramids. with mummies inside – and some 40 gilded statues The discovery at the famed necropolis is the in a vast pharaonic necropolis south of the capital, latest in a series of archaeological fi nds in Egypt. Cairo. Since September, antiquities authorities revealed

Colourful, sealed sarcophagi and statues that at least 140 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies were buried more than 2,500 years ago were inside most of them, in the same area of Saqqara. displayed on Saturday in a makeshift exhibit at Egyptian archaeologists found other “shafts full of the feet of the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser at coffi ns, well-gilded, well-painted, well-decorated,” Saqqara. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme

Archaeologists opened a coffi n with a well- Council of Antiquities, told reporters. preserved mummy wrapped in cloth inside. They Egypt frequently touts its archaeological also carried out x-raying visualising the structures discoveries in hopes of spurring a vital tourism of the ancient mummy, showing how the body had industry that has been reeling from the political been preserved. turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that

Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Anany overthrew longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. The told a news conference that the discovered items sector was also dealt a further blow this year by date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled the coronavirus pandemic. Egypt for some 300 years – from around 320 BC www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/14/egypt-unveilsto about 30 BC, and the Late Period (664-332 BC). ancient-coffi ns-statues-found-in-saqqara

The Saqqara site is part of the necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of

Memphis that includes

the famed Giza Pyramids, as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a

UNESCO World Heritage

site in the 1970s.

“Saqqara has yet to reveal all of its contents. It is a treasure,” El-Anany said. “Excavations are still under way. Whenever we empty a burial shaft of sarcophagi, we fi nd an entrance to another.”

The minister said authorities would move the artefacts to at least three The sealed wooden coffi ns belonged to top offi cials of the Late Period Cairo museums including the and the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt [Nariman El-Mofty/AP]