Tombs unearthed near Egyptian pyramid
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tombs unearthed near Egyptian pyramid*
POSTED: 1909 GMT (0309 HKT), February 20, 2007
Story Highlights
• NEW: Archaeologists uncover tombs of royal butler, scribe and two
wooden coffins
• Scribe's mud brick tomb holds wooden statues
• Butler's limestone tomb holds well preserved murals
• The tombs are located near the famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled the tombs of a
pharaonic butler and scribe that have been buried for more than 3,000
years -- proof, one says, that Egypt's sands still have secrets to reveal.
Although archaeologists have been exploring Egypt intensively for more
than 150 years, some estimate only one-third of what lies underground in
Saqqara, site of the country's most ancient pyramid, has been uncovered.
"The sands of Saqqara reveal lots of secrets," said Egypt's antiquities
chief, Zahi Hawass, as he showed reporters a 4,000-year-old mud brick
tomb that belonged to a scribe of divine records, Ka-Hay, and his wife.
The tomb, along with the butler's 3,350-year-old limestone grave and two
painted coffins, were discovered earlier this year at Saqqara near the
famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser -- the oldest of Egypt's more than 90
pyramids.
Hawass said the three discoveries are just the tip of what remains
undiscovered at Saqqara, which was the burial grounds for Memphis, the
capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom.
In December, archeologists in Saqqara discovered the mummified remains
of a doctor who was buried along with medical surgical tools more than
4,000 years ago. Two months earlier, the graves of three royal dentists
were discovered in Saqqara after the arrest of tomb raiders led
archaeologists to the site.
Hawass said the mud-brick tomb unveiled Tuesday, which also featured
wooden statues and a door with intricate hieroglyphic carvings, could
"could enrich our knowledge about the people who actually surrounded the
kings of Saqqara."
"It doesn't look great because it was built from mud brick and not built
of limestone, but I really believe that this tomb is very important,"
said Hawass, who donned his signature Indiana Jones-style hat.
Three wooden statues also were found in the mud-brick tomb. Two of them,
each about 3 feet tall and depicting the scribe, were laid out on pieces
of foam on the ground. The third was not shown because it was in poor
condition.
After Hawass presented the tomb, workers picked up the ancient statues,
placed them in the back of a pickup truck -- while tourists, surprised
at the media commotion, quickly snapped photographs -- and drove them to
another building in the complex.
On the other side of the Step Pyramid, archeologists then unveiled the
second tomb, which belonged to a butler who died some 3,350 years ago.
Carved out of limestone, the tomb contained murals that showed scenes of
people performing rituals and monkeys eating fruit. The blue and orange
colors of the paint were surprisingly well preserved.
"This is a very, very lively scene," said Maarten Raven, the
excavation's director and a curator at the National Museum of
Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands.
Raven said he believed other tombs from the New Kingdom, similar to the
butler's, had yet to be uncovered in Saqqara, which is famous for Old
Kingdom antiquities. Many of the New Kingdom tombs, which date back from
1570 B.C. to 1070 B.C., can be found in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor.
"We hope one day this area will be open to visitors so people can see
that Saqqara is not only Old Kingdom but New Kingdom as well," Raven said.
Hawass also unveiled two wooden coffins, 4,000 years old, that also were
found south of the Step Pyramid. The rectangular coffins, painted light
orange with blue hieroglyphics, contained human-shaped coffins known as
anthropoids, in which lay the mummies of a priest and a woman, who
Hawass said was identified by hieroglyphics on the coffin as the
priest's "girlfriend."
Saqqara, a popular tourist site located in the desert about 12 miles
south of Cairo, hosts a collection of temples, tombs and funerary
complexes. Its Step Pyramid is the forerunner of the more sophisticated
pyramids in Giza, which are believed to have been built about a century
later.