
Egyptian archaeologists make the 'biggest discovery of 2020'
More than 100 painted coffins have been found at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo.
Egyptian archaeologists have announced the discovery of more than 100 painted coffins at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, just south of Cairo.
The coffins are sealed and intact, and were found along with funerary masks, canopic jars—used to store mummified internal organs—and statues, says Khaled El-Enany, Egypt’s
The Art Newspaper
November 18, 2020
© Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt
minister of tourism and antiquities. The wooden coffins and other objects were buried during Egypt’s Late and Ptolemaic Periods, which together lasted from 664 to 30BC.This is “the biggest discovery in 2020”, says Mostafa Waziry, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. The coffins and objects were found in three burial shafts, each nearly 12 metres deep, which were hidden beneath an almost five-metre-high mound of debris, Waziry says.
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