Egypt reveals ancient coffins and mummies found in huge necropolis

EGYPTIAN ANTIQUES OFFICIALS 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.

Colorful, sealed statues and sarcophagi that were buried more than 2,500 years ago were displayed in a makeshift display at the foot of the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara.

Archaeologists opened a coffin with a well-preserved mummy wrapped in cloth inside. They also took X-rays of the structures of the ancient mummy, showing how the body had been preserved.

The Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Khaled el-Anany, told a news conference that the items discovered date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for 300 years, from around 320 BC. Until approximately 30 a. C., and the Late Period (664-332 a. C.).

He said experts would move the artifacts to at least three museums in Cairo, including the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is being built near the famous 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.

Egyptian archaeologists found other “wells full of coffins, well gilded, well painted, well decorated,” Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters today.

The Memphis ruins were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the 1970s.

Egypt frequently touts its archaeological discoveries in hopes of stimulating a vital tourism industry that has been recovering from the political turmoil that followed the popular uprising in 2011 that toppled the autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The sector has received a new blow this year from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Saqqara site is part of the necropolis of Egypt’s ancient capital, Memphis, which includes the famous pyramids of Giza, as well as the smaller pyramids of Abu Sir, Dahshur, and Abu Ruwaysh.