Ptolemaic tomb found in Egypt
2002-01-30 23:18
Cairo - Egyptian archaeology authorities announced on Wednesday the discovery of five tombs from the late Pharaonic period cut into a
mountain in southern Egypt.
The tombs, which date back to the Ptolemaic period (323-30 BC),
were discovered about a year ago by an Egyptian archaeology team
in an ancient necropolis some 450km south of
Cairo, said Yehya al-Masri, antiquities director for southern Egypt.
The cemetery itself, lying beneath the desert mountain of
al-Hawawish, topped by three Coptic monasteries, is spread over a
square kilometre and contains tombs ranging from the Old Kingdom
(2613-2181 BC) to the Roman era (30 BC-395 AD), Masri said.
The largest tomb, belonging to a Greek noblewoman named Bishset,
consists of a passageway and five burial chambers, and contains a
stele bearing a winged sun disk, and depicts of the tomb's owner standing among Pharaonic deities.
The noblewoman's coffin did not contain her mummy, and
the area had previously been raided by tomb robbers, Masri said.
- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA