WATANI International
29 May 2011
Last week Egypt received from Mexico a New Kingdom (1554 – 1075BC) sandstone relief depicting an unidentified figure of an Egyptian man. The 17x15cm-wide relief had been smuggled out of Egypt illegally, and was found in Mexico back in 2006, in the possession of a Mexican citizen. The Mexican police handed the relief over to the government, and it remained in the Mexican government’s custody until a three-year investigation proved it belonged to Egypt.
The relief arrived from Mexico yesterday in a diplomatic briefcase. An archaeological committee from the Ministry of State for Antiquities checked its authenticity. It will be restored and placed in a special display at the Egyptian museum.
Two important men
Seven New Kingdom tombs in South Saqqara, Giza, were last week opened to visitors. The area, which served as a necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital at Memphis, includes the newly-opened tombs of Tutankhamen’s treasurer, Maya, and his general who succeeded him as king, Horemheb.
The tombs, of spectacular beauty, had never been opened to the public before. As aptly stated by Minister of State for Archaeology Zahi Hawass who made the official opening, “Maya and Horemheb were two very important men during one of Egypt’s most tumultuous periods.”
Akhenaten, who lived some 3,300 years ago, closed down the temples where Egyptians worshipped in Luxor and moved his capital to a site north in the desert known today as Amarna. After he died, King Tut restored order in Egypt by moving the religious capital back to Luxor and re-establishing worship of the traditional god, Amun. Under King Tut, “Maya was responsible for restoring order in Egypt, while Horemheb restored order abroad,” Hawass said.
Among the other tombs opened in the necropolis are those which belonged to Meryneith, who was temple steward under Akhenaten, Ptahemwia, who was the royal butler to both Akhenaten and King Tut; Tia, a top official under Ramses II who ruled from 1303-1213 BC; and Pay and his son, Raia. Pay was the overseer of the harem under King Tut, and Raia was a soldier who later took over his father’s post.
Some of these tombs were first discovered in 1843 by the German explorer Richard Lepsius, but were only fully excavated by an Anglo-Dutch mission which began digging in Saqqara in 1975. Now a Dutch team from Leiden University is excavating the site and has been restoring the tombs.