by Cairo — Egyptian archaeologists who have spent years meticulously excavating a site in the ancient ruins of Saqqara, near Cairo, announced on Thursday a series of major discoveries dating back to Egypt’s Old Kingdom’s Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, more than 4,000 Years ago. One of the most important was a large rectangular limestone sarcophagus found at the bottom of a vertical shaft about 50 feet deep.
“The sarcophagus weighed about 45 tons and the lid was about 5 tons,” Dr. Zahi Hawass, director of the Egyptian excavation team at the Gisr el-Mudir site in the ancient city of Saqqara, told CBS News.
The lid was still sealed on the sarcophagus with mortar, exactly as it was left there some 4,300 years ago. It took the archaeologists about two hours of painstaking work to open it.
Inside, they found what Hawass said was the oldest non-royal mummy ever discovered in Egypt. It was also the oldest gold-leaf wrapped mummy ever found in the country, he added.
While the ancient Egyptian at the bottom of the deep well wasn’t a pharaoh, the elaborate afterlife dismissal made it clear they weren’t even common. And there was a name, engraved on top of the sarcophagus: “HqA-Sps”, or Hekashepes.
“Of course, he was important. For someone to make a sarcophagus like this, 15 feet underground, he would have to be a very important man,” Hawass told CBS News.
But while Hekashepes will earn his place in the history books, the gold-wrapped mummy wasn’t Hawass’ favorite new find at Saqqara, which is part of a sprawling necropolis that was ancient Egypt’s capital, known as Memphis. The famous Pyramids of Giza are nearby, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Memphis.
Among the items displayed by Hawass, a veteran Egyptian archaeologist, and his team on Thursday were 14 stone statues found in another shaft, about 33 feet deep, dating back to the “Old Kingdom,” or Age of Pyramids. between 2700 and 2200 BC, perhaps even older than the mummy of Hekashepes.
“These statues are quite unique,” Hawass said. “This is the first time in this century that such a large number of statues have been found in Saqqara.”
“Today’s discovery tells us more about the art in the Old Kingdom, about mummification and also about the people who worked there,” Hawass said. “One of the tombs was for a priest who was in charge of the pyramid complex of King Unas, the last king of the 5th dynasty.”
It’s been a week of reference announcements by Egyptian archaeologistswith another team revealing the discovery of a huge cemetery in the ancient city of Luxor, next to the ruins of a ‘complete’ Roman-era city nearby.
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