Significant finds, including a well-preserved mummy about 2,600 years old, have cast new light on important periods in ancient Egyptian history.
"Three mummies, one of a female, were found in wooden coffins crafted as human beings," said Kamal Wahid, director of the Saqqara antiquity zone near Cairo, where the discovery was made.
"The three elaborate coffins date back to the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC)," he told Gulf News.
A team of Australian archaeologists, after more than a month of working in Saqqara, 25km south of Cairo, unearthed the mummies.
"The three coffins are among the most intricate finds in the area." The first is two metres long and 64 cm wide and portrays a bearded man. "Inside it a mummy was found swathed in strips of linen and draped in a net of colourful beads," Wahid said.
The second coffin, which was in poot condition, contained a mummified woman wrapped in layers of black linen and a net of mostly turquoise beads. The coffin depicts the face of the woman wearing a collar decorated with images of deities.
The third coffin contains a male mummy and bears the same inscriptions and funerary decorations as the first.
"I think Saqqara is still a virgin as an archeological zone. Only about 30 per cent of its antiquity riches has been unearthed so far," said Wahid.
In addition, the team found a pair of wooden statues of Petah Sakar, the deity of Saqqara, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's top antiquities official.
The statues, showing Petah Sakar with two horns and a double-feathered crown, was discovered near the first and third coffins.
Skeletal remains and items used for mummification were also found.
Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, told reporters at the site of the excavations the discovery would throw light on two important periods of ancient Egyptian history the Old Kingdom, which dates back 4,200 years ago, and the 26th Dynasty. Hawass added that a well-preserved limestone coffin had been found in the same area dating back to the Fifth Dynasty (2494-2345 BC). Inside were two statues of a man believed to be Meri, tutor of Pharaoh Pepy I, and Meri's wife.
The Australian expedition excavated deeper in Saqqara and unearthed small mud brick tombs dating back to the Fifth Dynasty, according to Naguib Kanawati, head of the team from Sydney's Macquarie University.
The mummies, whose identities have yet to be established, will be studied further before being put on display in a new museum in Saqqara, officials said.
The writer is an Arab journalist based in Cairo
Gulf News
