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Saqqara:
Egypt introduced Saturday the invention of an historic treasure trove of greater than a 100 intact sarcophagi, the most important such discover this 12 months.
The sealed wood coffins, unveiled on website amid fanfare, belonged to high officers of the Late Period and the Ptolemaic interval of historic Egypt.
They had been present in three burial shafts at depths of 12 metres (40 toes) within the sweeping Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo.
Archaeologists opened one coffin to disclose a mummy wrapped in a burial shroud adorned with brightly colored hieroglyphic pictorials.
Saqqara is the burial website of the traditional Egyptian capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The large discover got here simply over a month after archaeologists within the space discovered 59 different well-preserved and sealed wood coffins courting again greater than 2,500 years in the past.
“Saqqara has yet to reveal all of its contents. It is a treasure,” Antiquities and Tourism Minister Khaled al-Anany mentioned on the unveiling ceremony.
“Excavations are still underway. Whenever we empty a burial shaft of sarcophagi, we find an entrance to another.”
More than 40 statues of historic deities and funerary masks had been additionally found, he mentioned.
They will likely be distributed amongst a number of museums in Egypt together with the yet-to-opened Grand Egyptian Museum on the Giza plateau.
The minister attributed the flurry of discoveries in Saqqara to intensive excavation works in recent times.
Another discovery within the huge necropolis is anticipated to be introduced within the coming weeks, he added.
Archaeologists additionally hope to seek out an historic workshop for manufacturing wood coffins for mummies quickly, in line with Mostafa Waziri, secretary normal of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Egypt hopes archaeological discoveries will spur tourism, a sector which has suffered a number of shocks ever since a 2011 rebellion up till right this moment’s coronavirus pandemic.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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