Archaeologists find tombs of high priests and royal officials in Egypt

Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities last Thursday announced what is reportedly one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of recent years: The tombs of the high priests - worshippers of the god Thoth, their families, and top officials spanning three dynasties.

The discovery was made by chance at the village of Tuna al-Gabal, near the Nina Valley of Minya in central Egypt.Archaeologists were excavating there, unrelated to the current find, when one of the team members noticed what looked like the head of a coffin. As they continued digging, they kept finding new sarcophagi stacked in two layers just tens of centimetres below the surface in the sand.

The archaeologists thus found a total of 16 tombs containing 20 sarcophagi from the late Pharaonic period between 664 and 399 BC. Some of the sarcophagi are made of limestone with hieroglyphs, five are wooden, are coloured and covered with inscriptions with the names of their owners. According to Dr. Mostafa Waziri, secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, "the elaborate decorations on the coffins probably compensated for the fact that they were not buried in proper tombs." The similarity of the coffins and their design suggests that they were made in the same workshop. They are all in very good condition, having been placed in sand where neither termites nor grave robbers could get in.

The inscription on one of the stone sarcophagi is dedicated to Thoth, the god of writing, speech and wisdom. The myriad proximity of previously found ushabti statues and mummies of ibis and baboons confirm the conjecture (Thovt was often depicted with the head of an ibis and sometimes a baboon). So far, all the open sarcophagi have concealed very well preserved male and female mummies. These are easy to identify; while the men have their palms clasped, the women, on the other hand, have them open.

Of the five stone sarcophagi, two are still closed and in excellent condition. One belonged to the guardian of the royal treasury and priest of the god Osiris, the other is dedicated to Horus, god of the sky, sun and light, with a depiction of the mother goddess Nuth with her wings spread. The inscription identifies the owner of the sarcophagus as Epy. All the sarcophagi will be exhibited in Cairo next year.

Roman Nemec

Sources: timesofisrael.com. nbcnews.com, thehistoryblog.com