Ancient mummification workshop found near Great Pyramids in Egypt
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient burial site and workshop that they expect to reveal mummification secrets.
The 2,500-year-old site, which includes mummies, masks, and the balms used for mummification, is considered an important archaeological discovery.
The ancient site was discovered 30 meters underground, adjacent to the Saqqara necropolis near the Great Pyramids, south of Cairo, on Saturday.
Hundreds of small stone statues, jars, and vessels used in the mummification process were all found inside the burial chambers, and excavated.
“The corpus of vessels that we found is giving us an opportunity to conduct a residue analysis process, in order to know chemically, exactly, what these oils are,” said the director of the Saqqara Seites Tomb Project Ramadan Badry Hussein.
“The workshop, the mummification workshop, is supposed to be the most expensive and the biggest one known until now, but we need some time to confirm what are the exact components, we need now some work to study the material and the oils discovered inside the vessels,” said Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anany.
Archaeologists hope the mummification workshop will provide fresh insight into the chemical make-up of the oils used by ancient Egyptians to mummify their dead.
The burial shaft is believed to date back to the Saite-Persian period, approximately 664-404 BC.
The shaft was originally discovered in the April of this year, containing 35 mummies in addition to stone sarcophagi.
Egypt, which is one of the top 10 oldest countries in the world, is hoping that archaeological finds will help revive interest among tourists who once flocked to its iconic pharaonic temples and pyramids but who have shunned the country since instability and insecurity hit after the 2011 political uprising in the country.
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