Ancient antiquities, including mummies and bronze statues dating from 2,500 years ago, were unearthed at the necropolis of Saqqara outside Cairo, Egyptian archaeologists announced on Monday.
The dig uncovered 250 sarcophagi, or painted coffins, that held well-preserved mummies.
“In one of the wooden sarcophagi, we found, for the first time, a complete and sealed papyrus,” Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters.
Archaeologists immediately took the manuscript to a museum so that officials could study it in greater detail. Waziri believes the document is comparable to those recovered 100 years ago that discuss the Book of the Gates and the Book of the Dead, which were Egyptian funerary texts.
The archaeological investigation at Saqqara uncovered more than 150 bronze figurines of Egyptian deities and instruments used in ceremonies dating back to the Late Period of ancient Egypt, around 500 B.C.
Several recent ancient discoveries in Egypt have the Egyptian government hopeful that tourists and foreign revenue will return to the country and create new jobs.
Because of the political unrest that followed the Arab Spring in 2011, Egypt’s tourism industry has been hit hard in the last decade. The coronavirus outbreak, which curtailed travel around the world, and the conflict in Ukraine have also hurt the industry. Ukraine and Russia are normally significant sources of tourists for the country.
Several important archeological discoveries have been made across Egypt recently, providing new insight into the ancient Egyptian dynasties.
Archaeologists discovered 16 human burial chambers on the grounds of an ancient temple outside Alexandria, Egypt, in February 2021. Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry claims that two mummies had “golden tongues,” which the ministry said were to allow the dead to “speak in the afterlife.”
A 5,000-year-old brewery — perhaps the world’s oldest — was unearthed at Sohag, a city in southern Egypt, during the same month. Researchers believe that beer may have been used in burial rituals for Egypt’s earliest kings.
In April of last year, archaeologists discovered a “lost golden city” in Luxor, Egypt. The city was described as one of the most significant discoveries since the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun, was uncovered in 1922.
The most recent archaeological excavations at the Saqqara necropolis were part of the burial grounds of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis. The city’s ruins are now designated as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The sarcophagi will be displayed at the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which will open in November near the famous Giza Pyramids outside Cairo.
