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Egypt has exhibited more than 100 coffins dating back 2,500 years, the latest and greatest find this year in the vast cemetery of the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo.
The coffins of the 26th dynasty, sealed, finely painted and well preserved, were of higher quality than previous finds there, said the secretary general of the supreme council of antiquities, Mostafa Waziri.
He said this suggests that the sarcophagi belonged to higher-ranking families.
Archaeologists opened a coffin to reveal a mummy wrapped in a funerary shroud adorned with brightly colored hieroglyphs.
Other finds include funerary masks and more than 40 statues of the funerary deity Ptah-Sokar, all intact for at least 2,000 years.
Fifty-nine coffins were unearthed in August at the same UNESCO world heritage site. More treasures are expected to be found there, Waziri said.
The newly discovered coffins, in addition to the mummies and associated artifacts, will be on display at the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is expected to open next year.
Saqqara, home to more than a dozen pyramids, ancient monasteries and animal burial grounds, is a vast necropolis in the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Saqqara has not revealed all its contents yet. It is a treasure,” Antiquities and Tourism Minister Khaled al-Anani said at the opening ceremony.
“Excavations are still ongoing. Whenever we empty one burial pit of sarcophagi, we find an entrance to another.”
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