Historical discovery! History will be rewritten. “He didn’t reveal all his secrets”

According to analyzes performed by archaeologists, these sarcophagi belong to nobles or officials from the late and Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt, notes Science Alert.

The sarcophagi were discovered in three burial pits, at a depth of 12 meters, in the necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo, Egypt. The site of Saqqara, 25 km south of the pyramids of the Giza plateau, houses the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. It is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Saqqara is a treasure

“Saqqara has not revealed all its secrets. It is a treasure,” said the Minister of Antiquities and Tourism, Khaled al-Anani, at the presentation ceremony.

“The excavations are still in progress. Every time we empty a funeral well with sarcophagi, we find an entrance to another”, adds the minister.

A similar discovery was made about two months ago

“We are announcing today that 59 sarcophagi (in total) have been removed from the burial pits,” said the Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities at the discovery site, next to the famous step pyramid of Djoser, built 4,700 years ago. .

According to him, this is only the beginning, because “an unknown number of sarcophagi” remain in other wells.

“This is not the end of the discovery, I think it is the beginning of a great discovery,” the official said, noting that the wooden sarcophagi probably date from the 26th dynasty of ancient Egypt, around the 6th-7th century BC.

According to initial observations, the sarcophagi contain the remains of some priests, high-ranking political leaders and other personalities.

Where the antiquities will end

The inauguration of one of them on Saturday in front of the press and the guests gathered under a large tent revealed a perfectly preserved mummy, adorned with colored hieroglyphs, with a face with finely shaped features.

Dozens of statues have been recovered from the surroundings, most notably a bronze statuette of the lotus god Nefertum.

All the sarcophagi, covered with complex designs in vivid colors, as well as hieroglyphs, will be transported to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM /), whose inauguration scheduled for the end of 2020 has been postponed to next year.

They will be placed in a room opposite the one that will receive 33 sealed sarcophagi of priests of the 22nd dynasty, discovered in 2019 in Luxor, in southern Egypt.