Lifestyle & Human Interest

An archeologist inspects a recently discovered burial chamber in the desert province of Minya, south of Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. On Saturday Egypt announced that it found a number of ancient burial chambers cut in rock, carrying about 40 mummies that are in good shape, along with pottery, papyri and exquisite mummy cases. Officials told reporters at the site that the chambers, which were cut out of rock, belonged to a middle-class family that probably lived during the Ptolemaic, early Roman or Byzantine period. (Roger Anis / AP Photo)

Breaking News: More Than 40 Mummies Unearthed at Egyptian Burial Site

By Amanda Thomason February 4, 2019 at 3:53pm

Egypt houses one of the wonders of the world: The great pyramid of Giza. Despite its history and the draw that has on people’s curiosity, Egypt’s tourism industry has been hurting for years.

The country has experienced much unrest, which has scared off potential visitors, but the minister of antiquities is doing all he can to entice people back with all the new discoveries they’ve been making.

The area south of Cairo has been giving up some of its oldest secrets. In Saqqara last year cat and scarab beetle remains were found that could be around 6,000 years old.

Cat mummies and 100 cat statues were found in several tombs, and the sarcophagi also revealed some of the area’s first scarab mummies. At the time, the Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities’ head, Mostafa Waziri, relayed their surprise at this unexpected find.

“The scarab is something really unique,” he said, according to The Guardian. “It is something really a bit rare.”

“A couple of days ago, when we discovered those coffins, they were sealed coffins with drawings of scarabs. I never heard about them before.”

Now, added to last year’s find of cats and beetles, is a burial site that has offered up more than 40 remains of people of all ages. This time the site was in Minya, Egypt.

The mummies included children, women and men buried in rock. While many of us might think of tombs belonging to nobility when we think of Egyptian mummies, this site was not used for royals, but it still holds plenty of valuable information.

“Some of them were buried inside stone or wooden sarcophagi while others were buried in sands or on the floors of the tombs or inside niches,” the Ministry of Antiquities revealed.

The statement also described the location as “a tomb engraved in rock composed of a corridor leading to sloping stairs that opened to a rectangular chamber with a number of burials,” according to CNN.

The prevailing theory is that all the mummies are of people who belonged to the same family, which has been described as upper-middle class and dating from 323 to 30 BC.

The mummies were found in good condition, and researchers found pieces of papyri in the tombs that helped them to narrow down the timeline. Would you visit Egypt to see these finds?

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