WATANI International
8 March 2009
Two finds were recently uncovered under the sands of the pyramids plateau and south of the Saqqara desert. In the first case, a quartzite statue of a seated figure was accidentally found during the process of cleaning and maintenance currently conducted by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in the pyramids area. It was uncovered 40 centimetres under the sand at the north wall which surrounds the pyramid complex of the King Menkaure (2551 – 2523BC).
Zahi Hawwas, head of the SCA said the 149cm-high statue belonged to an unknown character since it bore no inscriptions whatsoever as to the identity of its owner, but the style of the sculpture indicated that it went back to the Old Kingdom (2649 – 2513BC). It has a few cracks in the shoulder, bust, and base, and part of the face is eroded.
The pyramids plateau is undergoing the third and last phase of a project aimed at conserving the area. A wall has been built around the vicinity, with electronic gates to heighten security. Traffic has been banned from the area, and so have the vendors who used to pester the visitors with offers for camel or horse rides.
…And in Saqqara
In the burial chamber of a 19th Dynasty (1569 – 1315BC) tomb discovered by the Wasida University expedition in Saqqara, south of Giza, a limestone sarcophagus belonging to the “noble woman” Isis Nefret was found, as were three mummies and some funerary pieces. The noble woman is believed to be a granddaughter of Ramses II. The sarcophagus, which was broken, carried inscriptions in blue bas-relief with the owner’s name.
At Dahshour, south of Saqqara, the Wasida expedition uncovered four wooden sarcophagi, three wooden vessels to keep the innards of the dead bodies, and four boxes of 38 ushabti statues, most of which were broken, inside a tomb that dated back to the era of the Ramses pharaohs. The sarcophagi were void of any bodies inside, meaning that, according to Dr Hawwas, the bodies had been robbed in some ancient time.
The sarcophagi were found in pairs, each pair with a smaller sarcophagus inside a larger one. They are painted in black with yellow inscriptions on top, as well as images of ancient goddesses with the dead man who was buried inside.
The Wasida University expedition has been working in Dahshour for some 15 years now and has made plenty of discoveries. An exhibition of several of the pieces it uncovered is currently touring Japan to mark 40 years of archaeological work by Wasida University in Egypt.
Ancient tomb
Belgian archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old pharaonic official’s tomb that had disappeared under sand in the West Bank of Luxor, Upper Egypt, after it was first discovered about 130 years ago. The tomb belongs to Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer for King Thutmose III who ruled Egypt in the 18th Dynasty. The tomb was first discovered in 1880 by Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl, but was later buried under sand until the Belgian team found it again this year. Laurent Bavay, the head of the Belgian team, said that most of the inscriptions on the tomb’s walls were heavily damaged, but those on the ceiling were in good condition.