Saqqara, May 28 (BNA): Egypt has discovered mummification workshops for humans and animals as well as two tombs in an ancient necropolis in Saqqara, officials said today, Saturday, in the latest in a series of discoveries that the country hopes will help revive its vitality. the field of tourism.
Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters that the two large “mummification workshops” date back to the Thirtieth Dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic era (305-30 BC), according to Reuters.
The discovery was made after a year-long excavation near the sanctuary of the goddess Bastet, which includes the catacombs of mummified cats at Saqqara, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) south of Cairo.
It was the same place where hundreds of stuffed animals and figurines were discovered in 2019.
“We found one mummification workshop for humans and one for animals. We found all the tools they used (in mummification) in ancient times,” Waziri said.
Both workshops included stone beds, pottery pots, ritual vessels, natron salt, one of the main ingredients for mummification, and linens among other embalming tools.
The excavations at Saqqara also led to the discovery of two small tombs, 4,400 and 3,400 years old, belonging to two priests, Ni-Hesut-Ba of the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom and Min-Khyber of the Eighteenth Dynasty of the Late Kingdom, respectively.
Carvings of farming, hunting and other daily activities were found on the walls of the Nei Hisot-Ba tomb, officials said, while “scenes showing the deceased in various locations” were carved in a cemetery from Khyber.
Egypt has carried out large-scale excavations at Saqqara and other ancient sites in recent years, resulting in a number of notable discoveries.
The country plans to open the Grand Egyptian Museum, a modern facility near the Giza pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, after its construction is completed later this year.
Egypt hopes to be able to attract tourists again after the industry began to recover recently, after it was hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.
Tourism revenues jumped to $7.3 billion in the second half of 2022, up 25.7 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, according to recently released central bank data.
HF