250 mummies in coffins among latest discoveries from Egypt's Saqqara treasure trove

www.cbsnews.com...

Egyptian archaeologists have revealed another massive haul of priceless artifacts from the Saqqara Necropolis, a bountiful site near Cairo that likely still holds untold secrets. On display Monday were dozens of newly-discovered, beautifully decorated coffins or sarcophagi, still sealed up with their owners mummified inside, along with dozens of bronze statues. Monday's big reveal, with artifacts lined up in front of Saqqara's Step Pyramid of Djoser for journalists to admire, was the fifth by the archaeologists working at the site since 2018, and there are still many years of work left to carry out there.

The artifacts displayed on Monday included about 150 bronze statues of Egyptian deities of different sizes, including some portraying the gods Anubis, Osiris, Nefertem, Isis, and Hathor.

Inside the same coffin, the archaeologists discovered a papyrus roll they believe may be 10 yards long and contain chapters of the "Book of the Dead." The papyrus has been sent to a lab at the Egyptian Museum for further examination.

There's more at the link but wow, that's a helluva haul. They now call it the Cemetry of Sacred Animals after mummified animals were found there. Really cool stuff they keep finding. They think they have found pages of The Book Of The Dead, fascinating stuff with this find.

Very cool find The Book of the Dead isn't a new find, though, but it still could contain some new things because there were many versions over the centuries. en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: DragonsDemesne

That is what I was implying, that there might be new finds regarding the book. I didn't state that well enough.

Way cool! Unfortunately, ATS is so deep into politics these days that this will go unnoticed.

i would love to see these get DNA sequenced and added to the global pool so we can compare the DNA and see their migration patterns to better understand the Egyptian people as a whole.

I know Egypt was a major metropolis so I know it will be a melting pot, but still to be able to see it and connect it with other ancient DNA and the various people groups that would come up would be really cool.

Especially since every ancient intact DNA find is helping modern genealogy and DNA groups with more accurate hablotyping and sequencing. I love these sorts of large scale cemetery finds.

I hope they respectfully bury them back though when they are fininished.

a reply to: lostbook

Well, at least 12 people have read this and got something out of this little tidbit.

originally posted by: ProgramSiberia
i would love to see these get DNA sequenced and added to the global pool so we can compare the DNA and see their migration patterns to better understand the Egyptian people as a whole.

I know Egypt was a major metropolis so I know it will be a melting pot, but still to be able to see it and connect it with other ancient DNA and the various people groups that would come up would be really cool.

Especially since every ancient intact DNA find is helping modern genealogy and DNA groups with more accurate hablotyping and sequencing. I love these sorts of large scale cemetery finds.

I hope they respectfully bury them back though when they are fininished.

i just watched a show that said they came from nubia.

there was also a little block on animal mummies.

they found aboutb 8 million of them and x rayed about 8 thousand of them
only to find about a third had animals in the wrappings.

they said they were offerings to the gods, so instead of wiping out all the critters around, they farmed a lot and the rest
were made for pilgrims to buy for the offering.

makes sense.

nice thread.

a reply to: sarahvital
Egypt was compromised of many different ethnicities and had many different Pharaoh's from different ethnic backgrounds.

Nubians were different culturally and ethnically from Egyptians. However, they did have a time period where they had a few Nubian Pharaoh's.

But, I think that's what makes Egypt so interesting is the different Kingdoms and different ethnicities it had.

Even more interesting you might find is that even greeks who came to Egypt in the later periods chose to be buried in the Egyptian way in Saqqara!

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

I wish they would tell us more about our pre history! Too many treaties of people and land that would be affected for them to ever do it without WWII reshaping the map. Too sad but great post!!!!