2 500-year-old tomb found
2001-11-19 11:56
Cairo - Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered a 2 500-year-old limestone tomb, possibly of a palace worker, in a part of Cairo packed with apartment blocks.
"This is an amazing discovery," Zahi Hawass, antiquities chief for the Giza Pyramids area, said on Sunday.
"Between the houses of downtown Cairo in an area called Ain Shams ... (we) have found this tomb."
Work has begun on excavating the find, where sewage from nearby homes has damaged scenes in the first of three burial chambers to be opened.
Inscriptions show the tomb's owner might have worked with the royal palace, and Hawass said it might have been for a whole family.
Antiquities department inspectors discovered the tomb, dated to the 26th Dynasty between 664 and 525 BC, after the owner of the land applied for a building permit.
It is about three meters (nine feet) underground and its three burial chambers are connected with a vault.
"We are now in the process of excavating the sand from inside and taking it out, and after that we will try to find out what's inside the other two burial chambers," Hawass said.
He told Sunday's Akhbar al-Youm newspaper that there was a second complete limestone tomb in the same area. He said Culture Minister Farouk Hosni had agreed to start procedures to open it after securing the site.
He said buildings had also been discovered attached to the second tomb made of mud bricks, which might lead to more important discoveries.
Earlier this month, archaeologists discovered the oldest known tomb of a pharaonic surgeon, dating back more than 4 000 years, buried in desert sands near Cairo.