This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Egypt unveils ancient coffins and mummies found in huge necropolis
14/11/2020
Egyptian antiquities officials have announced the discovery of at least 100 ancient coffins, some with mummies inside, and around 40 gilded statues in a vast Pharaonic necropolis south of Cairo.
Archaeologists opened a coffin with a well-preserved mummy wrapped in cloth inside. They also X‐rayed the structures of the ancient mummy, showing how the body had been preserved.
Tourism and antiquities minister Khaled el-Anany told a news conference that the discovered items date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for 300 years — from around 320BC to about 30BC, and the Late Period (664-332BC).
He said experts would move the artefacts to at least three Cairo museums including the Grand Egyptian Museum which is being built near the famed Giza Pyramids. He added that they would announce another discovery at the Saqqara necropolis later this year.
The discovery is the latest in a series of archaeological finds in Egypt. Since September, antiquities authorities have revealed at least 140 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies inside most of them, in the same area of Saqqara.
Published: by Radio NewsHub