New Discovery, Saqqara: Egypt reveals 59 ancient coffins found near Saqqara pyramids, many of which hold mummies

Egypt’s tourism and antiquities minster said on Saturday archaeologists have unearthed dozens of ancient coffins in a vast necropolis south of Cairo.

Khalid el-Anany said at least 59 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies inside most of them, were found that had been buried in three wells more than 2,600 years ago.

The Saqqara plateau hosts at least 11 pyramids, including the Step Pyramid, along with hundreds of tombs of ancient officials and other sites that range from the 1st Dynasty (2920 B.C.-2770 B.C.) to the Coptic period (395-642).

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said initial studies show that the decorated coffins were made for priests, top officials and elites from the Pharaonic Late Period (664-525 B.C.).  

The Saqqara discovery is the latest in a series of archeological finds that Egypt has sought to publicize in an effort to revive its key tourism sector, which was badly hit by the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising. The sector was also dealt a further blow this year by the global coronavirus pandemic.

“I consider this is the beginning of a big discovery,” el-Anany said, adding that there is an unknown number of coffins that have yet to be unearthed in the same area.

He spoke at a news conference at the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara where the coffins were found. The sarcophagi have been displayed and one of them was opened before reporters to show the mummy inside. Several foreign diplomats attended the announcement ceremony.

He said archaeologists also found a total of 28 statuettes of Ptah-Soker the main god of the Saqqara necropolis, and a beautifully carved 35 cm tall bronze statuette of god Nefertum, inlaid with precious stones. 

The name of its owner, Priest Badi-Amun, is written on its base, he said.
Egyptian antiquities officials had announced the discovery of the first batch coffins last month, when archaeologists found 13 of the containers in a newly discovered 11 meter-deep (36 feet) well. 

El-Anany said the Saqqara coffins would join 30 ancient wooden coffins that were discovered in October in the southern city of Luxor, and will be showcased at the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which Egypt is building near the Giza Pyramids.

Source : USA Today

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Egypt News : Siaw Oasis reopens archaeological and tourist sites.

Archaeological and tourist sites opened to visitors in Egypt’s Siwa Oasis on September 1.
Fathi Diab, Director-General of Siwa Antiquities, announced that the sites are committed to enforcing all COVID-19 precautionary measures, included mask-wearing and social distancing.
Indoor archaeological sites allow visits from groups of no more than seven, whereas outdoor and open sites have no capacity restrictions.
Located in the Western Desert, Siwa Oasis is famous for its lengthy nine-month tourist season, which boasts moderate weather.
Siwa receives many local and foreign tourists at archaeological sites such as the Gebel al-Mawta (Mountain of the Dead), Shali Mountain, Mount Dakrur, Oracle Temple, Umm Ubaydah Temple, and other Pharaonic, Roman, and Islamic monuments.
Egypt reopened its borders for tourism on July 1, and has gradually allowed hotels and tourist sites to resume operations. The government is enforcing strict anti-coronavirus measures to ensure the safety of both tourists and citizens.

Source:egyptindependent

News Egypt, Hawass: Restoring Nefertiti’s Bust to Egypt is Popular Demand.

Egyptian archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass said that Egypt was able to prove that the bust of Queen Nefertiti came out of the country, illegally. Hawass added that it was stolen, and it must be restored.

Hawass expressed that the bust was obliterated and smuggled to Germany.

He pointed out that he is now collecting signatures from Egyptian and foreign intellectuals to restore Nefertiti’s bust to Egypt.

It was stolen and came out of Egypt, illegally. He said: “I want to turn the demand to return Nefertiti’s opinion to popular demand. We don’t want to involve the government in this matter.

Source:lomazoma

New Discovery, Sakkara "9": Archaeologists Find 27 Coffins at Egypt’s Saqqara Pyramid

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered 27 coffins inside a large burial ground in an ancient city south of Cairo.
The coffins have remained unopened since they were buried more than 2,500 years ago, the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said this week.
The burial ground is near the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, said Neveine el-Arif, a ministry spokeswoman. She said 13 coffins were found earlier this month in a newly discovered, 11 meter-deep well. Last week, 14 more were discovered in another well.
The ministry showed video of the coffins, which were covered with colorful ancient Egyptian writing. Other artifacts found in the two wells were also shown.
In March, Egypt reopened the Step Pyramid at Saqqara after a 14-year restoration effort that cost around $6.6 million. The pyramid is believed to be the first ever built.
The Saqqara area once had at least 11 pyramids, including the Step Pyramid. It also held hundreds of tombs of ancient officials, ranging from the 1st Dynasty, 2920 B.C.-2770 B.C., to the Coptic period, 395-642.

Archaeologists are still working to discover more about the history of the coffins, el-Arif said. She added that more information and some “secrets” would likely be announced next month. Additional coffins are expected to be found in the area, she said.
In recent years, Egypt has often announced new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats in an effort to bring more tourists to the country.
Last year, archaeologists found a burial ground containing hundreds of mummified animals.
The Saqqara area is part of Egypt’s ancient city of Memphis. It also includes Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh, as well as the famed Giza Pyramids. The ruins of Memphis became a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s.
In October 2019, archaeologists found 30 ancient wooden coffins with writings and paintings in the southern city of Luxor.
The Luxor coffins were moved to be shown to the public at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Egypt is building the museum near the Giza Pyramids.
Egypt’s financially important tourism industry has suffered from years of political problems and violence since the 2011 uprising that removed longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
The industry has also been hurt by the coronavirus crisis. In July, the country restarted international flights and reopened major tourist areas, but the number of visitors remains low.                   

      

Source:learningenglish

New Discovery, Minya: Pharaonic tomb discovered in Egypt.

Cairo, Sep 22 (IANS) Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has announced that a pharaonic tomb has been discovered in the country's Minya province.

The tomb was unearthed by an Egyptian mission working at the Tuna al-Gabal archaeological site, Xinhua news agency quoted Mostafa Waziri, head of the ministry's Supreme Council of Antiquities, as saying on Monday.

A limestone coffin and a collection of 'ushabti' (funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian religion) statues made of faience were found inside the tomb, Waziri said, adding that all the pieces were in good condition.

Initial inspection indicated that the tomb belongs to a person called Jahouti Umm Hoteb from the 26th Dynasty which ruled Egypt between 664-525 B.C., he added.

The official revealed that the person worked as the supervisor of the thrones, adding that he was the son of Hersa Est, whose coffin was uncovered by the same mission in 2018.

Source:menafn

Hurghada International Airport: Egypt's Hurghada airport receives first flight by Swiss Chair Airlines since virus hiatus

Egypt’s Hurghada has received the first flight operated by Swiss Chair Airlines from Zurich after a flight suspension that had been in place since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, a statement by the civil aviation ministry said on Sunday.
Egypt’s popular tourist resort towns Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh have been receiving more international flights in the past weeks, after the country reopened its airspace to regular flights in July.
Since the resumption of flights, foreign tourists in tour groups have been allowed entry into three coastal Egyptian governorates: Red Sea, Marsa Matrouh and South Sinai.
Egypt requires travellers arriving in the country to present a negative PCR test result certificate for the coronavirus. The test must be taken no more than 96 hours prior to arrival.
However, travellers entering Egypt at any of four airports in the Red Sea governorate and South Sinai can take a coronavirus test upon arrival.
Egypt hopes that the resumption of regular flights will boost its coronavirus-hit tourism sector, an essential source of foreign currency.

Source:ahramonline

Egypt News "2" : Egypt cuts highways across pyramids plateau, alarming conservationists.

"The roads are very, very important for development, for Egyptians, for inside Egypt," says head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "Know that we take good care of our antiquities sites everywhere in Egypt."
Egypt is building two highways across the pyramids plateau outside Cairo, reviving and expanding a project that was suspended in the 1990s after an international outcry.
The Great Pyramids, Egypt's top tourist destination, are the sole survivor of the seven wonders of the ancient world and the plateau is a UNESCO world heritage site.
The highways are part of an infrastructure push spearheaded by Egypt's powerful military and championed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is building a new capital city to ease the population pressure on Cairo, home to 20 million people.
The northern highway will cross the desert 2.5 km (1.6 miles) south of the Great Pyramids. The southern one will pass between the Step Pyramid of Saqqara - the oldest one - and the Dahshur area, home to the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid.
Each highway appears to be about eight lanes wide.
Critics say they could cause irrevocable damage to one of the world's most important heritage sites. Authorities say they will be built with care and improve transport links, connecting new urban developments and bypassing central Cairo's congestion.
"The roads are very, very important for development, for Egyptians, for inside Egypt," said Mostafa al-Waziri, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. "Know that we take good care of our antiquities sites everywhere in Egypt."
Some Egyptologists and conservationists say the highways will disrupt the integrity of the pyramids plateau, pave over unexplored archaeological sites, generate pollution that could corrode monuments, produce litter and expose closed areas packed with hidden archaeological treasures to looting.

Al-Waziri said existing roads were much closer to the pyramids and carried a lot of tourist buses. "That is why we are doing a lot of development," he said, noting plans to use electric tourist buses within the plateau to avoid pollution.

The highways, which will dissect the plateau into three, will cross a section of ancient Memphis, one of the world's biggest and most influential cities for almost 3,000 years.
"I was flabbergasted by what I saw," said former senior UNESCO official Said Zulficar, who visited a portion of the southern highway two months ago. "All the work that I had done nearly 25 years ago is now being put into question.
"Zulficar led a successful campaign in the mid-1990s to suspend construction of the northern highway, a branch of Cairo's first ringroad. UNESCO said it had requested detailed information on the new plan several times and asked to send a monitoring mission.
The state press center referred a Reuters request for further comment on the plans to a communications advisor of the tourism and antiquities ministry, who could not be reached.
Construction began well over a year ago in desert areas largely out of public sight and became more visible around March, Egyptologists and Google Earth images indicate.
On a recent visit, Reuters journalists saw heavy machinery clearing fields and building bridges and junctions along both highways. Hundreds of uprooted date palms lay in piles.
The southern highway is a part of Cairo's second ringroad that will connect the western satellite city of Sixth of October to the new capital city east of Cairo via 16 kilometers (nine miles) of desert on the pyramids plateau, farmland and a corner of Memphis.
In 2014, the World Bank estimated congestion in the greater Cairo area cut about 3.6 percentage points off Egypt's output.
"The road cuts through archeologically unexplored cemeteries of the little-known 13th Dynasty, in walking distance of the pyramids of Pepi II and Khendjer and the Mastabat el-Fara'un", said an Egyptologist who knows the area.
The person was among six Egyptologists Reuters spoke to. Most of them declined to be named for fear of losing clearance to handle antiquities.
One said caches of statues and blocks with hieroglyphs had been unearthed since highway construction began; the antiquities authority said on its Facebook page these had been discovered on nearby private property.
Memphis, said to have been founded in about 3,000 B.C. when Egypt was united into a single country, was eclipsed but not abandoned when Alexander the Great moved the capital to Alexandria in 331 B.C.
It extended more than 6 square kilometres, the Nile valley's largest ancient settlement site.
The new road comes close to the ancient city's commercial districts, its harbour walls and the former site of an ancient Nilometer, used to measure the height of the annual flood, said David Jeffreys, a British Egyptologist who has been working on Memphis for the Egypt Exploration Society since 1981.

It also endangers a Roman wall that once bordered the Nile that Jeffreys said few people were aware of.

"Memphis has long been neglected, even by Egyptologists, as it is a complicated site to excavate," another Egyptologist said. "But it is enormously rich, bursting with temples, archives, administrative buildings and industrial areas."

source:israelhayom