Group Of Persian, Roman and Coptic Tombs Discovered In Egypt
Ancient tombs dating to the Roman, Persian and Coptic eras have been unearthed in Egypt.
Twenty-two tombs dating to Persian, Roman and Coptic eras were uncovered at an archaeological site in Egypt, officials said.
The burial site — which included coffins and pottery — was found at the Al Bahnasa archaeological area about 130 miles south of Cairo, according to a Feb. 24 news release from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
Three of the unearthed tombs dated to the Persian period, the earliest of the three eras associated with the site, officials said.
The Persian period lasted from about 500 to 400 BC and was associated with the Persian Empire’s domination of Egypt, according to research from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Shown are several of the tombs uncovered at an the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Egypt.
Three other tombs, which were made of limestone, dated to the Roman period, officials said.
The Roman period began with Caesar Augustus’ arrival to Egypt in 30 BC and lasted for about another century, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the majority of the tombs, 16, dated to the Byzantine or Coptic periods, which followed the Persian and Roman eras and were associated with the spread of Christianity in Egypt, according to University College London research.
The tombs varied in their conditions. Some were lacking funerary objects, indicating they might have been looted, officials said, while others appeared undisturbed and included bodies wrapped in decorated shrouds, according to the Emirates News Agency.
“One of the more notable finds were offerings consisting of two frogs deposited inside two jars,” the agency said. Additionally, ancient texts, written in Greek and Coptic, were found on the walls of the unearthed necropolis, officials said.
Greek was Egypt’s official language for government proceedings until is was replaced by Arabic in the 7th century, according to UCL research.
The entire burial complex has been rendered using 3D imaging, and archaeologists will continue examining it, officials said.
The Al Bahnasa site, located near the Nile River, has been continuously excavated for over a decade, according to the Egyptian Journal of Archaeological and Restoration Studies.
During the Roman age it was a prominent city known as Okserynekos. The recent excavations were undertaken by a team of Egyptian and Spanish archaeologists affiliated with the University of Barcelona, officials said.
The excavation site in Nyayanga where hundreds of stone tools dating to roughly 2.9 million years ago were found
Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever used by ancient humans, dating back around 2.9 million years.
It is evidence that the tools were used by other branches of early humans, not just the ancestors of Homo Sapiens.
The tools were used to butcher hippos and pound plant materials like tubers and fruit, the researchers said.
Two big fossil teeth found at the site belong to an extinct human cousin, known as Paranthropus.
Scientists had previously thought that Oldowan tools, a kind of simple stone implement, were only used by ancestors of Homo Sapiens, a grouping that includes our species and our closest relatives.
However, no Homo Sapien fossils were found at the excavation site in Nyayanga on the Homa Peninsula in western Kenya.
Instead, there were two teeth – stout molars – from the Paranthropus genus that had combined ape-like and human-like traits, along with 330 stone tools.
The two Paranthropus teeth that were recovered from the Nyayanga site in Kenya. The left upper molar (top) was found on the surface, the left lower molar (bottom) was excavated
“Oldowan technology was like suddenly evolving a brand new set of teeth outside your body, and it opened up a new variety of foods on the African savannah to our ancestors.”
“The association of these Nyayanga tools with Paranthropus may reopen the case as to who made the oldest Oldowan tools. Perhaps not only Homo, but other kinds of hominins were processing food with Oldowan technology,” said anthropologist Thomas Plummer of Queens College in New York City, lead author of the research published in the journal Science.
The latest find of the Oldowan tools show that they were a significant upgrade in sophistication compared to earlier crude stone tools dated to as early as 3.3 million years old, before the emergence of the Homo genus, researchers said.
Other hominins existing at the time included the genus Australopithecus, known for the famous even-older fossil “Lucy” which was found in 1974 in northern Ethiopia.
The analysis of wear patterns on 30 of the stone tools found at the site showed that they had been used to cut, scrape and pound both animals and plants
Vessels from an ancient Egyptian embalming workshop, including these, provided scientists with clues to the ingredients used in various mixtures for preparing the dead for mummification.
Scientists have unwrapped long-sought details of embalming practices that ancient Egyptians used to preserve dead bodies.
“Ancient Egyptian embalmers had extensive chemical knowledge and knew what substances to put on the skin to preserve it, even without knowing about bacteria and other microorganisms,” Philipp Stockhammer, an archaeologist at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, said at a January 31 news conference.
The findings come courtesy of chemical residue inside 31 vessels found in an Egyptian embalming workshop and four vessels discovered in an adjacent pair of burial chambers. Writing on workshop vessels named embalming substances, provided embalming instructions (such as “to put on his head”) or both. All the artifacts — dating from Egypt’s 26th dynasty which rose to power between 664 B.C. and 525 B.C. — were excavated at a cemetery site called Saqqara in 2016. Archaeologist and study coauthor Ramadan Hussein, who died in 2022, led that project.
Newfound mummy embalming mixtures
Five of the vessels had the label antiu. The substance was thought to have been a fragrant resin called myrrh. The antiu at Saqqara, however, consisted of oil or tar from cedar and juniper or cypress trees mixed with animal fats. Writing on these jars indicates that antiu could have been used alone or combined with another substance called sefet.
Three vessels from the embalming workshop bore the label sefet, which researchers have usually described as an unidentified oil. At Saqqara, sefet was a scented, fat-based ointment with added ingredients from plants. Two sefet pots contained animal fats mixed with oil or tar from juniper or cypress trees. A third container held animal fats and elemi, a fragrant resin from tropical trees.
Clarification of the ingredients in antiu and sefet at Saqqara “takes mummification studies further than before,” says Egyptologist Bob Brier of Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y., who was not part of the research.
Egyptians may have started mummifying their dead as early as 6,330 years ago (SN: 8/18/14). Mummification procedures and rituals focused on keeping the body fresh so the deceased could enter what was believed to be an eternal afterlife.
Embalming and mummification procedures likely changed over time, says team member Maxime Rageot, a biomolecular archaeologist also at Ludwig Maximilians University. Embalmers’ mixtures at Saqqara may not correspond, say, to those used around 700 years earlier for King Tutankhamun (SN: 11/2/22).
Mummy embalming instructions
Outside surfaces of other vessels from the Saqqara embalming workshop and burial chambers sported labels and, in some cases, instructions for treatment of the head, preparation of linen mummy bandages, washing the body and treating the liver and stomach. Inscriptions on one jar referred to an administrator who performed embalming procedures, mainly on the head.
Chemical residue inside these pots consisted of mixtures specific to each embalming procedure. Ingredients included oils or tars of cedar and juniper or cypress trees, pistachio resin, castor oil, animal fats, heated beeswax, bitumen (a dense, oily substance), elemi and a resin called dammar.
Most of those substances have been identified in earlier studies of chemical residues from Egyptian mummies and embalming vessels in individual tombs, says Egyptologist Margaret Serpico of University College London. But elemi and dammar resins have not previously been linked to ancient Egyptian embalming practices and are “highly unexpected,” notes Serpico, who did not participate in the new study.
Elemi was an ingredient in the workshop mixtures used to treat the head, the liver and bandages wrapped around the body. Chemical signs of dammar appeared in a vessel from one of the burial chambers that included remnants of a range of substances, indicating that the container had been used to blend several different mixtures, the researchers say.
Specific properties of elemi and dammar that aided in preserving dead bodies have yet to be investigated, Stockhammer said.
A far-flung trade network for mummy embalming ingredients
Elemi resin reached Egypt from tropical parts of Africa or Southeast Asia, while dammar originated in Southeast Asia or Indonesia, Rageot says. Other embalming substances detected at Saqqara came from Southwest Asia and parts of southern Europe and northern Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. These findings provide the first evidence that ancient Egyptian embalmers depended on substances transported across vast trade networks.
It’s no surprise that ancient Egyptians imported embalming ingredients from distant lands, Brier says. “They were great traders, had limited [local] wood products and really wanted these substances to achieve immortality.”
Egypt’s “Great Revolt”, which happened from 207 to 184 BC, is detailed on the Rosetta Stone
Rare evidence of a decades-long rebellion against Greek-Macedonian rule, mentioned in the Rosetta Stone, has been found in an ancient Egyptian city.
Excavations at Tell Timai, ancient Thmouis, 102km north of Cairo, revealed extensive destruction that occurred during the Great Revolt, which happened from 207 to 184 BC.
A map of Egypt’s Delta, showing the location of ancient Thmuis, modern Tell Timai
“Archaeological evidence from the [revolt] is quite rare,” says Jay Silverstein of Nottingham Trent University, UK, one of the lead authors of the paper published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
“There are of course a number of decrees and inscriptions, like the Rosetta Stone, some historical accounts, and a few papyri with indirect references, but when it comes to finding the locations where the sword meets the bone, as far as I can tell, this is the first that has been recognized.”
Weapons found at Tell Timai: Ballista stones, a sling pellet, and an arrowhead
Over the course of several years, the team uncovered the remains of burned buildings, weapons, stones thrown by a siege engine, coins hidden beneath the floor of a house, a broken divine statue near a temple, and unburied bodies strewn among the ruins or dumped in mounds of rubble and refuse.
The skeleton of one young man was discovered with his legs sticking out of a large kiln, where he had perhaps hoped to hide from his attackers.
A man in his 50s, whose body displayed earlier healed wounds, appears to have died defending himself. He may have decomposed sitting upright.
Coins and pottery discovered in a destroyed room during the excavations at Tell Timai
By examining the pottery and coins, the team dated the destruction to the Great Revolt, when the Egyptians tried, but failed, to liberate themselves from Ptolemaic rule—the line of Greek-Macedonian kings that began after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and ended with the famous Cleopatra VII.
“We have opened a new door into our understanding of Hellenistic colonialism, indigenous resistance, and the mechanisms of control including the brutality of the Macedonian dynasty’s rule of Egypt,” says Silverstein.
“Many other cities suffered a similar fate to that of Thmouis and I hope that this discovery will help broaden the scope of our archaeological understanding of these events.”
A view of the archaeological site of Tell Timai
The discovery made Silverstein reconsider how decisive the events of the rebellion were in the development of the Western world.
“Hellenistic Egypt played a crucial role in the trajectory of history including its role as a crucible of Christianity and a bulwark of Roman imperial power. Had the Egyptians retaken their land from the Greek occupiers, I suspect the world would look significantly different today.”
Mysterious Medieval City in Africa Had a Genius System to Survive Drought
Great Zimbabwe.
Great Zimbabwe was the first major city in southern Africa, home to an estimated 18,000 people at its peak. Yet no one really knows why it now lies in ruins.
A team of researchers from Denmark, South Africa, England, and Zimbabwe argue that a series of large, circular depressions known as ‘dhaka’ pits, found around the city, were not used for digging up clay, as experts once thought, but for capturing water.
At the base of several hillsides, for instance, lie numerous dhaka pits, strategically placed to capture rain and groundwater. Other pits surrounding the city straddle streams.
By collecting rainwater and cordoning off some parts of a river or stream, researchers argue the people who once lived here could have ensured water was available for drinking and agriculture through most of the year, even in dry season.
Many of the plant remains found near dhakas, for instance, are known to thrive near rivers or groundwater sources that hold high soil moisture.
The new perspective of Great Zimbabwe’s dhaka pits was made possible by using airborne laser scanning to survey the major features of the site, even in places with thick vegetation.
These findings were then complemented by ground surveys and conversations with local communities, who must also conserve water in the arid region.
A map of the Great Zimbabwe ruins showing the main structures.
Figuring out how much water all the dhakas around the city could have once held is imprecise work, especially since this is one of the first studies to really examine the structures. Nevertheless, estimates suggest these pits might have stored over 18 million liters of water.
In the heyday of Great Zimbabwe, between the 11th and 15th centuries, the city was home to ruling elites, religious leaders, craftsmen, and merchants, all of whom would have shared spring water and rainwater in an integrated and flexible system.
During the rainy season, experts say some areas of the city would have become wet and marshy. These locations appear to have been perfect for mining clay to build houses. In drier times, some of these quarries seem to have been turned into reservoirs to collect groundwater and runoff from surrounding hills.
“This partially engineered landscape required maintenance, though organized in a relatively passive manner as runoff was allowed to wash into these basins,” the authors write.
“Taken together, the new records show that physical forms, ecological functions, and cultural values of water all shaped, and were shaped by, how communities approached, managed, and conserved water,” they add.
Today, very little is known about the history of Great Zimbabwe. It’s still possible that the city collapsed due to climate change, even with such a carefully coordinated water system.
During its existence, the world experienced the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and a Little Ice Age, which could have put the growing city under immense stress. But economic or political strains could have also caused its demise.
More research needs to be done before archaeologists can say what happened to southern Africa’s first city and its people. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned in the ruins.
Saqqara Secrets: A Book Of The Dead Was Found Near Step Pyramid
A vintage illustration from the Papyrus of Ani, which dates to the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, circa 1250 B.C. There aren’t any released images of the newfound Book of the Dead papyrus found at Saqqara.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 52-foot-long (16 meters) papyrus containing sections from the Book of the Dead. The more than 2,000-year-old document was found within a coffin in a tomb south of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.
There are many texts from The Book of the Dead, and analysis of the new finding may shed light on ancient Egyptian funerary traditions.
Conservation work is already complete, and the papyrus is being translated into Arabic, according to a translated statement, which was released in conjunction with an event marking Egyptian Archaeologists Day on Jan. 14.
This is the first full papyrus to be uncovered at Saqqara in more than 100 years, Mostafa Waziry, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said, according to the statement.
The Step Pyramid of Djoser was constructed during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (ruled circa 2630 B.C. to 2611 B.C.) and was the first pyramid the Egyptians built.
The area around the step pyramid was used for burials for millennia. Indeed, the coffin that housed the newfound papyrus dates to the Late Period (circa 712 B.C. to 332 B.C.), Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of Antiquities, told Live Science in an email. Information about who owned the papyrus and its precise date will be announced soon, Hawass said.
The Book of the Dead is a modern-day name given to a series of texts the Egyptians believed would help the dead navigate the underworld, among other purposes. They were widely used during the New Kingdom (circa 1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C.).
While 52 feet is lengthy, there are other examples of Book of the Dead papyri of that length or longer. “There are many manuscripts that would have been similar in length, but papyrus manuscripts of ancient Egyptian religious texts can vary quite dramatically in length,” Foy Scalf, the head of research archives at the University of Chicago, told Live Science in an email. Scalf, who was not involved in the latest discovery but holds a doctorate in Egyptology, noted that there are Book of the Dead scrolls that measure over 98 feet (30 m) long.
Second papyrus
This appears to be the second papyrus containing texts from the Book of the Dead that has been found at Saqqara in the past year. In 2022, a 13-foot-long (4 m) fragmentary papyrus containing texts from the Book of the Dead was found at Saqqara in a burial shaft near the pyramid of the pharaoh Teti (reigned circa 2323 B.C. to 2291 B.C.). It had the name of its owner, a man named “Pwkhaef,” written on it.
Despite being buried near pharaoh Teti’s pyramid, Pwkhaef lived centuries after the ruler.
The burial shafts where this papyrus was found date to the 18th and 19th dynasties of Egypt (1550 B.C. to 1186 B.C.). But the practice of being buried next to the pyramid of a former ruler was popular in Egypt at the time.
The discovery was made by a team of Egyptian archaeologists from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which has yet to release images of the ancient document. According to the statement, the papyrus will soon go on display in an Egyptian museum.
Archaeologists have discovered a residential area in Luxor dating to the time when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt.
Part of the Roman residential area that archaeologists uncovered in Luxor.
A team of archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities found a number of residential buildings, along with workshops and pigeon towers (where pigeons could be raised for eating), according to a ministry statement, which noted that this is the “first complete residential city” from the Roman Empire era found in east Luxor.
A variety of artifacts were also uncovered, including pottery, bells, grinding tools (often used for food preparation), and Roman coins made of copper and bronze.
The residential area is close to Luxor Temple, a large religious center built during the reigns of several pharaohs before the Roman Empire, including Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and Tutankhamun. But the residential area dates to much later, during the second and third centuries A.D. During this time, Egypt was a Roman province and Roman emperors were sometimes depicted as pharaohs.
Some of the artifacts — including pottery, bells and Roman coins — found during excavation of the residential area.
The team found that when the Romans took over Luxor, they started raising pigeons by erecting pigeon towers containing pots that the pigeons could use as nests, the statement said. Pigeons are the descendants of rock doves (Columba livia), which breed on rocky, coastal cliffs; but towers can mimic cliff conditions, making the birds feel right at home.
Live Science contacted a number of scholars who were not involved with the research to get their thoughts.
Susanna McFadden, a professor of art history at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in Greco-Roman art, called the finds “exciting news.” She is curious to learn how the team determined that the remains dated to the second and third centuries A.D.
She also wonders if there could be a relationship between this settlement and a military camp that was active in the area during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian (reign circa 284 to 305). “It stands to reason that a residential area servicing the camp would have grown up outside the walls,” McFadden told Live Science in an email.
The Roman residential area dates to the second to third centuries A.D.
Another scholar noted that this Roman residential area is not an entirely new find. The residential area in Luxor has “been known for a long time,” Jacek Kościuk, professor emeritus at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland, told Live Science in an email.
Kościuk participated in excavations of Roman residential remains at Luxor that were carried out by an Egyptian-German team in the early 1980s. He sent Live Science two papers, published in 2011 in the journal Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte (Bulletin of the Coptic Archaeological Society), noting that while the 1980s team was able to survey only a small part of the settlement, they found the remains of Roman houses and baths.
While the existence of the Roman residential area was already known, the recent excavations unearthed a large portion of it, which may shed new light on what Luxor was like in Roman times.
The new finds have “the potential to elucidate some critical research questions about Roman-era [Luxor], if the analysis is done carefully,” McFadden said.
Egypt discovers 4,300-year-old tombs in the ancient burial ground
Egypt on Thursday said it uncovered several 4,300-year-old tombs in Saqqara as it continues a series of discoveries in the ancient burial ground.
The tombs date back to the Fifth and Sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 B.C.), officials said in Saqqara, which lies some 19 miles south of Cairo.
Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, the director of the Egyptian excavation team, works at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 15 miles southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 26, 2023.
Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who led the team that made the discovery in Saqqara’s Gisr Al-Mudir area, said “12 beautifully carved statues” were also found as well as two deep burial shafts, one of which includes what he described as possibly the “most complete mummy found in Egypt to date.”
“The most important tomb belongs to Khnumdjedef, an inspector of the officials, a supervisor of the nobles, and a priest in the pyramid complex of Unas, the last king of the fifth dynasty. The tomb is decorated with scenes of daily life,” Hawass said.
Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, the director of the Egyptian excavation team, speaks during a press conference at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 15 miles southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 26, 2023.
“The second largest tomb belonged to Meri, who held many important titles, such as keeper of the secrets and assistant of the great leader of the palace.”
Another tomb featured a handful of statues of unidentified individuals, including two couples.
Egyptian antiquities workers watch recently discovered artifacts at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 26, 2023.
Hawass said the main highlight was the uncovering of a 15-meter-deep burial shaft where a “large rectangular limestone sarcophagus” was found at its bottom.
The mummy of a man called Hekashepes was found inside, he revealed. It is covered with gold leaf.
An Egyptian archaeologist restores antiquities after the announcement of new discoveries in Gisr el-Mudir in Saqqara, in Giza, Egypt, Jan. 26, 2023.
“This mummy may be the oldest and most complete mummy found in Egypt to date,” Hawass added.
Wooden and stone statues were also uncovered in another 10-meter-deep shaft, as was a stone sarcophagus that included a mummy of a man called Fetek, according to the inscriptions found on the coffin.
Recently discovered artifacts at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 15 miles southwest of Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 26, 2023.
Egypt hopes a string of discoveries will help revive its ailing tourism industry, a key source of hard currency.
Extensive excavation efforts in Saqqara in recent years have led to several high-profile archaeological discoveries, including the unearthing of a 4,400-year-old tomb of royal priest Wahtye in 2018 and the discovery of hundreds of mummified animals and statues a year later.
