Mummy-filled burial chambers discovered in Egypt's Minya
As the sun warmed the air at Tuna El-Gebel necropolis in Minya governorate on Saturday morning, hundreds of media and officials gathered to witness the announcement of the first discovery of 2019.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
At the site, Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany announced that a joint mission from the ministry and the Research Centre for Archaeological Studies at Minya University had stumbled upon a collection of Ptolemaic-era rock burial chambers, filled with a large number of mummies of different sizes and genders.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
El-Enany told the attendees that this is the discovery to be announced in Minya since he took office and the first in 2019. He also promised that this year will witness more discoveries.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
“The newly discovered tombs are a familial grave which was probably for a family from the upper middle class,” El-Enany said.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
There are over 40 mummies. Some of them still have fragments of coloured cartonnage covers near their feet.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
Ostraca and fragments of papyri were also found in the tomb, he said, which helped reveal that it could date to the Ptolemaic, early Roman and Byzantine periods.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
Another chamber was also located at the western side filled with mummies and large stone sarcophagi. At the northern side there is a third chamber with a collection of stone sarcophagi inside niches.
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Credit: Egypt. Ministry of Antiquities |
Fathi Awad, director of Tuna El-Gebel, said that the archaeological site has several tombs, among them the tomb of Petosiris, the Isadora tomb, a sacred animal ceremony, a Roman cemetery and two frontier reliefs of Akhenaten.
Al-Mashat said that the event was an important message to the whole world that Egypt “has it all.”
Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [February 02, 2019]
Egypt is full of history through the ages
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