Cairo The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has revealed details of the latest historical discoveries emerging from the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The sprawling burial grounds are located in what was once Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to more than a dozen pyramids, including Egypt’s oldest, the Pyramid of Djoser.
The site has yielded thousands of artifacts over decades of excavations, but one of the greatest rewards for Egyptologists in this latest round of discoveries was the identity of a queen who died about 4,200 years ago.
Her tomb was discovered at a site next to the pyramid of King Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty of the Ancient Kingdom of Egypt, the era between approximately 2680 and 2180 BC known as the Age of Pyramids.
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“The excavation began in 2010, when we discovered a pyramid of a queen next to the pyramid of King Teti, but we found no name in the pyramid to tell us who owned the pyramid,” said a leading Egyptologist and former minister of antiquities. Dr. Zahi Hawass told CBS News.
About a month ago they discovered a funerary temple, and now researchers finally have a name for the ancient female monarch: Queen Neit, the wife of King Teti. Her name was finally found, carved on a wall in the temple and also written on a fallen obelisk at the entrance of her tomb.
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“I had never heard of this queen. That’s why we are adding an important piece to Egyptian history about this queen,” said Hawass, who leads the archaeological mission. He said the recent discoveries would help “rewrite” the history of ancient Egypt.
His team also discovered 52 burial shafts, each about 9 to 12 meters deep, in which they found more than 50 wooden coffins dating back to the New Kingdom about 3,000 years ago.
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“Actually, we found another shaft this morning,” Hawass told CBS News Monday. ‘In the shaft we found a large limestone sarcophagus. This is the first time we have discovered a limestone sarcophagus in the shafts. We found another one that we will open in a week. ‘
The team also found a papyrus about 4 feet long and 1 meter wide, on which chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead is written in hieroglyphs, with the name of the owner on it. The Book of the Dead is an ancient manuscript explaining how to navigate the afterlife to reach the field of Aaru paradise, to ancient Egyptians.
Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities
Hawass said it was the first time such a large papyrus had been discovered in a burial shaft.
Other finds from the site include numerous wooden funerary masks, a shrine dedicated to the god Anubis (guardian of the cemetery), statues of Anubis, and games buried with the dead, to keep them busy in the afterlife. One of them was a game called “Twenty”, found with the owner’s name still visible on it.
Another game, called “Senet” (cross), was found in the shafts. It is similar to chess, but if the deceased player wins, they will safely enter the afterlife.