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Egypt Ministry of Antiquities
A worker studies one of the funerary jars found inside a recently discovered burial chamber in Luxor.
Archaeologists say they have discovered a string of 3,000-year-old rock tombs in the Egyptian city of Luxor, containing the remains of wooden coffins, skeletons, furniture and canopic jars.
The tombs were dug within the funerary temple of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, who reigned from 1427 to 1401 B.C. during Egypt's 18th Dynasty. However, the newfound tombs appear to be part of a more recent cemetery. In Thursday's announcement of the discovery, Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said they date back to the beginning of a transitional period that lasted from 1075 to 664 B.C.
Ibrahim said a team led by Italian archaeologist Angelo Sesana made the discovery while cleaning up the site in the course of an excavation at Amenhotep II's temple, on the west bank of the Nile River.
"When we began digging, the area was only a mound of debris. We were in no way certain of what we would find." Sesana told the Italian news service ANSA.
Sesana, who has led excavations within the temple's ruins for 15 years, voiced excitement over the find: "It moves you like little else to bring back to life someone who sought immortality 4,000 years ago."
Each of the tombs consists of a pit that leads to a burial chamber. The wooden coffins found within the chambers bore decorations in red and black ink, and contained the remains of skeletons, Ibrahim said. Mansour Barek, the antiquities supervisor at Luxor, said the archaeologists found 12 canopic jars — some made of limestone, and others made of fired clay. Such jars were used in ancient Egypt to preserve the internal organs of the dead.
Barek said the lids of the jars were in the shape of the four sons of the Egyptian god Horus: Imsety, with a human head, the spirit who protects the liver; Hapi, a baboon-headed spirit responsible for the lungs; the jackal-headed Duamutef, who guards the stomach; and falcon-headed Qebehsenuef, who guards the intestines.
The discovery demonstrates that Amenhotep II's temple continued to be seen as an important site many years after the pharaoh's death, Ibrahim told Egypt's Ahram Online. Sesana said some of the canopic jars came from the tomb of an unidentified woman — and Egyptologist Wafaa El Saddik told the BBC that the jars were of good quality, suggesting that the tombs belonged to wealthy people.
The antiquities ministry said the artifacts were transferred to storage in Luxor for maintenance and restoration, in preparation for museum display.
Egypt Ministry of Antiquities
Four canopic jars are sculpted to represent spirits who guard the internal organs of the dead.
More about Egyptian archaeology:
- Egypt's oldest carvings of pharaoh found
- Egypt's largest sarcophagus is fit for a king
- 16 severed hands found in Egypt — all rights
NBC News' Taha Belal contributed to this report from Cairo.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
3000? That was last week in their history.
The stink in the canopic jars must have kept a lot of would be robbers away. Disgusting!
It's the art in the artifacts that interests me .
I'd like to hear the names of the artists who really deserve the recognition .
What a nice find .
Amazing to look at the sculptures of that time and even earlier periods in Egypt. A time when most of Europe and the world was in a savage state.
What a happy looking Anubis! I'm totally having my organs put in canopic jars when I die.
i'm going with made in america good ole Mason jars...hell...i drunk enough out of one i may be permanently preserved...and won't need a jar when i'm dead...
Nice, but 3000 years old is not very old in Egypt. It sounds like these come from after the New Kingdom. I am also confused about them being found "in Luxor." It would have been Thebes in Greek and Waset in Egyptian and I assume that they were not found in the city (which would have been on the eastern bank of the Nile) but rather in the necropolis on the western side.
Yes, you're right: They're New Kingdom, and they were found on the west bank of the Nile. I should just call it Luxor and leave it at that. Will revise story accordingly, thanks.
Alan you are okay. The city is Luxor...but also the gnome/province is Luxor too. So the area is Luxor. They were found in the area of the Tombs of the Nobles which has several areas attached to it. It is not exactly what we would call a necropolis for they are more dispersed. It is a wonderful, fascinating find, that adds another piece of the informational puzzle. They might even be able to link these artifacts to the Artisans in The Valley of the Artisans. (Snedgen & his wife)
Renee Marie Jones you ask WONDERFUL questions and show a knowledge of Egypt and History that is a little unusual in the states. I LOVE this. It is nice to see such wonderful postings to a nice article.
I live in Heliopolis/Cairo and get a little tired of the news media reporting so many negative things in Egypt. Alan, thank you for writing a nice and positive article. Articles such as yours mean the world to the Egyptians!!
Interesting that the human brain didn't appear to be worthy of any special treatment. Internal organs each had spirit guardians (except for the heart which, if memory serves correctly, was left in the body) but the brain was just discarded.
Good point. But then again the brain kind of turns to mush pretty quickly and would be very difficult to embalm with 3,000 year old techniques.
they scooped out the brain through a small puncture in the sinuses using a very small "spoon". This left the skull, scalp, face intact so the mummie or body looked like it was ready to revive in the afterlife. Took hours and hours. This so the brain would not rot and cause the rest of the skull to go with it. So it was not possible to preserve it.
I hope an archeologist doesn't come 'round to my burial site in 3000 years and dig my crap up.
Hopefully your crap is somewhere else. I don't really think it will matter much what happens to our bones 3,000 years from now.
Isn't it grave robbing??
Not if the guy doing it is credentialed. If he puts the findings on display and the paying customers viewing it are doing so in a museum setting then no it's not considered robbery. If he takes it and sells it to private collector, or if he is not credentialed then it's robbery because the State is denied control and profit in the matter. The fact that the person buried and the people who buried him never intended for him to get dug up, handled, tested and put on display for people they thought unworthy is irrelevant. They lost their rights to privacy through time. They are so far gone they are considered not to matter except as a career improvement for the people digging them up and this justifies the whole thing. This is how we justify anything we want. This is progress.
So we should be able to dig up Washington and Jefferson??
Compared to ancient Egypt, Washington and Jefferson died almost yesterday.
I think people forget how young the US is, and how short our history is.
yes. Ol George and Thomas and even Abe Lincoln will get dug up eventually. Like Spielman said though, it'll take more time.
Not only this find- but they found 8 million mummified dogs (cats and manguos). The site to go to and read what all Egyptians should safeguard (not destroy as threatened by Salafist Nour - like in Mali-like in Libya). http://www.english.ahram.org/NewsContent/9/40/61381/ Egyptians should be promoting Egyptiology instead of totalitarian MB agendas and enactments.
The Egyptians ARE trying to promote their archeological sites mimi Jacques. It is only our news media here in the United States that is harping on the negative. I live in Heliopolis (Cairo) and it completely irritates me when I listen to our news. In order to help the Egyptians we need to help them by going there and touring the sites. I am not sure what the agenda of the U.S. media members are, but they are not helping Egypt.
I'd crack up if someone turned over one of those jars and saw stamped "Made in China" on it!
Once again, highly paid archaeologists have spent countless thousands of dollars to dig up ancient graves! It has been known for quite some time that people actually died in ancient Egypt, and all these 'discoveries' prove is that those people are still seriously dead! 2000 years from now, will anyone care that our presidents will be dig up and their bones put on display in some museum? Even worse, probably some rich oil sheikh will have Abe Lincoln's bones in a glass case in his palatial drawing room for all his rich Iranian and Syrian friends to see.
Oh Please! I understand your point, but historical artifacts must be studied. There are very few areas in the world where items (Yes, even bodies) from that period can be found, let alone studied.
I think any protests must be lodged by proven living descendants. Most Egyptians are probably in some way descendants of those being exhumed, but their government knows where the money is to be made.
How come you never find their junk in the trunks ???????????????????
Made in China on the bottom of the jars. Now that is funny !
Good thing Zawi Hawas is no longer Antiquities Minister. He's probably foaming at the mouth on this one. If he was still in charge, he'd already be filming the documentary, taking as much credit as possible, and will have had himself filmed personally opening all the tombs himself! Oh, and let's not forget already having all the gift shop items ordered!
Dr. Hawas is still a major force in the region. He is passionate about each and every find that comes into the global view. He walked a very fine line between pushing as hard as he could being a politician to the educator that he is. He deserves a little more respect than what you have given him. He is still available and is teaching and lecturing. he feels as if he has been freed from the political scene. As with anyone he enjoys the limelight, but felt it was time to step a little behind. he also does not trust the MB and feels he can make more of a difference in his new role.
Looks to me like they got a bit mixed up when putting the lids on the jars....