Ireland to return mummified remains and sarcophagus to Egypt

Mummified human remains and a sarcophagus is among the ancient objects that an Irish university says it plans to repatriate to Egypt.

All of the artifacts being returned by the University College Cork (UCC) date from between 100AD and 975BC. An inscription on the wooden sarcophagus, which was donated to UCC, suggests it belonged to a man named Hor.

UCC said it plans to return the items in 2023.

The human remains are thought to be that of an adult male and were donated to the UCC in 1928.

The items also include a set of four canopic jars – containers used by ancient Egyptians during mummification – and funerary head and body coverings known as cartonnage.

The jars are the oldest items, likely dating between 945-700BC, and were bought by the UCC from an antique dealership in Yorkshire.

There are no records indicating how the cartonnage made its way to the university.

The sarcophagus was excavated by Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli in the early 1900s.

The announcement of the items’ return follows ongoing discussions between UCC, the Egyptian and Irish governments, and the National Museum of Ireland.

Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said he was “delighted” that his department could help in what he described as an “important project”.

Egypt’s ambassador to Ireland, Mohamed Sarwat Selim, expressed his thanks to everyone involved in the repatriation.

The items’ return will be documented in a creative project called Kinship, which is being lead by the Irish artist Dorothy Cross.

“The essence of Kinship is the return of a mummified body of an Egyptian man from Ireland to Cairo, mirroring the tragic displacement and migration of thousands of people from their homelands today,” Ms. Cross said.

The 2,300-year-old mummy under the floorboards that UCC has been in custody dispute with Egypt over has been spotted on the move in the library #UCC pic.twitter.com/CDpIqddSTZ

— Samantha Calthrop (@stcalthrop) September 27, 2022

In recent years, more and more institutions are returning artifacts to their homelands.

Greek officials are said to be in preliminary talks with the British Museum about the return of the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles.

Meanwhile, Germany announced earlier this year that it planned to return objects taken from Africa during its colonial rule.

Why the discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb would rewrite history

It couldn’t have been a case of better timing. Egyptologists celebrating the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, now have a promising new archaeological discovery that appears to have been made in Egypt.

Excavators have discovered a tunnel under the Taposiris Magna temple, west of the ancient city of Alexandria, which they have suggested could lead to the tomb of Queen Cleopatra.

Evidence that this is really the case remains to be seen, but such a discovery would be a major find, with the potential to rewrite what we know about Egypt’s most famous queen.

According to the ancient Greek writer Plutarch – who wrote a biography of Cleopatra’s husband, the Roman general Mark Antony, and is responsible for the lengthiest and most detailed account of the last days of Cleopatra’s reign – both Antony and Cleopatra were buried inside Cleopatra’s mausoleum.

According to Plutarch, on the day that Augustus and his Roman forces invaded Egypt and captured Alexandria, Antony fell on his sword, died in Cleopatra’s arms, and was then interred in the mausoleum. Two weeks later, Cleopatra went to the mausoleum to make offerings and pour libations, and took her own life in a way that is still unknown (a popular misconception is that she was bitten by an asp). She too was then interred in the mausoleum.

In the days that followed, Antony’s son Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV Caesar (also known as Caesarion, “Little Caesar”), were both murdered by Roman forces, and the two young men may likewise have been interred there.

If the mausoleum of Cleopatra has not already vanished beneath the waves of the Mediterranean along with most of the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, and is one day found, it would be an almost unprecedented archaeological discovery.

A discovery that could rewrite history

While the tombs of many famous historical rulers are still standing – the mausoleum of Augustus, Antony, and Cleopatra’s mortal enemy, in Rome, is one example – their contents have often been looted and lost centuries ago.

One notable exception is the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, uncovered at Vergina in the late 1970s.

The tomb was found intact, and this has enabled decades of scientific investigation into its contents, advancing our knowledge of members of the Macedonian royal family and their court. The same would be true if Cleopatra’s tomb were discovered, and found to be intact.

The number of new information Egyptologists, classicists, ancient historians, and archaeologists could glean from its contents would be immense. For the most part, our knowledge of Cleopatra and her reign comes from ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, written after her death and inherently hostile to the Egyptian queen.

We do not have much evidence revealing the Egyptian perspective on Cleopatra, but what we do have, such as honorific reliefs on the temples that she built and votives dedicated by her subjects, gives us a very different view of her.

The ethics of unearthing Cleopatra’s remains

To date, no other Ptolemaic ruler’s tomb has been found. They were reportedly all situated in the palace quarter of Alexandria and are believed to be under the sea with the rest of that part of the city.

The architecture and material contents of the tomb alone would keep historians busy for decades, and provide unprecedented amounts of information about the Ptolemaic royal cult and the fusion of Macedonian and Egyptian culture. But if Cleopatra’s remains were there too, they could tell us a great deal more, including the cause of her death, her physical appearance, and even answer the thorny question of her race.

But should we be hoping to find Cleopatra’s remains, and analyze them? From Tutankhamun to the ordinary ancient Egyptians whose mummies have been excavated over the centuries, there has been a long history of mismanagement and mistreatment.

While the days when mummies were unwrapped as a form of entertainment at Victorian dinner parties have thankfully passed, concerns are increasingly being raised by those who work in heritage about the appropriate treatment of our ancestors.

While the discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb would be priceless for Egyptologists and other scholars, is it fair to deny the queen the opportunity for peace and privacy in death that she did not receive in life?

Rare Archaeological Discoveries In The Sacred Animal Necropolis In Saqqara

Egypt is a land of great interest to anyone interested in archaeology and ancient history, but at present times the Coronavirus outbreak doesn’t allow us to admire the treasures of the land of the Pharaohs.

However, we can still use online resources to learn more about archaeological findings in Egypt.

On their official website, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has told the public about some intriguing archaeological discoveries.

In the sacred animal necropolis in Saqqara, archaeologists have brought to light a beautifully decorated tomb of Wahti and the cachette of the sacred mummified birds and animals. Some of these animal mummies are very rare.

The latest discovery was at the bottom of an 11-meter-deep shaft where scientists uncovered five sealed stone coffins/sarcophagi, four niches in a room containing wooden coffins, and Late Period human burials were uncovered.

A massive anthropoid wooden coffin with hieroglyphs written in yellow pigment was discovered in one niche.

“We found several other artifacts around the coffin,” the ministry said.

“They included 365 faience Ushabti figurines, some of which bear hieroglyphs texts; a small wooden obelisk about 40 cm tall, all four of its sides bearing painted scenes depicting the deities Isis and Nephthys, and the deity Horus; wooden statues of the god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris; and three pottery canopic jars in which the viscera removed during mummification was kept, in addition to many other artifacts.”

According to archaeological expert Abdel-Rahman Rihan, the discovery should be dated to the late Pharaonic kingdom following the third transitional era and prior to the Ptolemaic Era, dating back to 332 B.C.

“Egyptian archaeologists do not all agree on the beginning of the late era. However, they do agree that it was around the late 25th Dynasty and before or during the 26th Dynasty,” Arab News reports.

The 25th Dynasty rulers were from Sudan, particularly Sudan’s northern area of Nabta, which was the capital of the kingdom of Kush in ancient times. The region is about 300 km from the capital Khartoum.

“The discovery is certainly very important as it coincides with the expected inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is at the top of the Egyptian state’s priorities after the coronavirus pandemic is over,” Rihan said.

The ministry was using technology to introduce its archaeological discoveries to the world, and these would be “awaiting visitors” after the pandemic ended, he said.

Huge funerary building and Fayoum portraits discovered in Egypt Fayoum

The Egyptian archaeological mission working in the Gerza archaeological site in Fayoum revealed a huge funerary building from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, as well as a number of Fayoum portraits.

These are the first mummy portraits discovered at Fayoum during an archaeological dig since Flinders Petrie discovered 146 of them in a Roman-era cemetery in 1910–1911.

Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that what was discovered at the site illustrates the diversity and difference in the accuracy and quality of the embalming process during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, which indicates the economic stature of the deceased, starting from high-quality embalming to simple burials.

Also, a rare terracotta statue of the goddess Isis-Aphrodite was also found in one of the burials inside a wooden coffin.

Regarding the architectural remains, Dr. Adel Okasha, head of the Central Department of Egyptian Antiquities in Central Egypt, indicated that what has been found is a huge building of funerary house type, with a floor made of colored lime mortar and decorated with interchangeable tiles. On its southern side, there is a colonnade of which four columns survive. Through the building, there is also access to a narrow street.

He added that among the many and diverse artifacts found and recorded, the portraits of mummies, or what is known as Fayoum portraits, are of great importance.

Mummy portraits, also known as Fayum portraits, are the most amazing body of painting to have come to us from the ancient world; they are remarkable for their social significance as well as their artistic quality.

” Fayoum Portraits ” is the name that has been given to describe them because more have been found in the Fayoum Oasis than anywhere else in Egypt.

For his part, Dr. Basem Jihad, the supervisor of the central training unit and head of the mission, said that the mission also succeeded in uncovering a number of coffins of different styles, some of them in the human form and others in the Greek form with a gabled roof.

Under the rule of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the village of Gerza was established as Philadelphia (309–246 BC). Since 2016, there have been ongoing excavations, and many artifacts have been found that date from the city’s founding to Roman rule in the third century A.D.

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb.

The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.

There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.

Newly discovered pyramid

The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.

“Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything,” said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.

The pyramid itself “probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath,” Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven’t survived or have not yet been found.

Military ties

It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.

Cahail believes that Horemheb’s family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. The writing on the figurines say that they are for the “Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses).” This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.

He noted it’s interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.

“They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time,” Cahail said.

Multiple wives?

The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it’s uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.

Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.

Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.

“You’re left with the question, who are all these people?” Cahail said.

A Jasper treasure

One of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.

“It’s a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets,” Cahail said. “It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that.”

The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma’at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.

“Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you’ve done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth,” Cahail said.

Egypt’s Fayum Oasis Yields Funerary Structure and Portraits

The Egyptian archaeological mission at the Garza archaeological site in Egypt’s Fayoum city uncovered on Thursday a large funerary building/structure dating back to the Ptolemaic and Roman eras.

This is the 10th excavation season for this mission, which began excavations in 2016.

The Garza village, previously known as Philadelphia village, was established in the third century BCE as a central village within the agricultural reclamation project implemented by King Ptolemy II in the Fayoum region.

Its aim was to secure food resources for the Egyptian kingdom and it had both Greek and Egyptian inhabitants.

The floor of the funerary building consists of coloured lime mortar and is decorated with differently coloured tiles. In addition, the remains of four columns (found inside a column shed) were discovered in the vicinity of the building, said head of the Central Department of Egyptian Antiquities in Central Egypt Adel Okasha.  

Basem Jihad, supervisor of the central training unit and head of the mission, added that a number of coffins in both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek styles were also found.  

He added that this is characteristic of this site, and that many previous discoveries reflect this combination of architecture and artefacts from both civilisations.

Furthermore, the new discovery displays the variety and diversity in the quality of embalming extant during the Ptolemaic and Roman dynasties.

This variety, which ranges from high-quality embalming to simple burials, indicates the standard of living of the dead, said Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Moustafa Waziri.

In addition, a number of portraits, popularly known as Fayoum portraits, were also uncovered by the mission.

Okasha asserted that these portraits are the first to be discovered since English archaeologist Flinders Petrie unearthed a group of them back in 1907.

Therefore, the recently discovered portraits are one of the most precious archaeological findings this season.

A rare terracotta statue of the goddess Isis Aphrodite was discovered in one of the wooden coffins, as well as a cache of papyrus documents.

The papyrus documents were inscribed in both Demotic and Greek script (both indicating the ancient Egyptian language), and reflect the social and religious conditions of the inhabitants, said Waziri.

Two mysterious ‘secret chambers’ were discovered inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid using cosmic rays and space particles

Two secret chambers have been discovered in Egypt’s 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza. Researchers confirmed they had found the mysterious cavaties after scanning the centuries-old tomb using revolutionary radiography equipment.

The Scan Pyramids project made the latest discovery after being able to demonstrate the efficiency of non-evasive Muons technology at the Bent Pyramid in Dahshour this May.

Last year thermal scanning identified a major anomaly in the Great Pyramid, sparking a debate over whether there was a long-running network of tunnels hidden away inside.

But now the mystery has been answered as the Ministry of Antiquities announced on Thursday that ‘two anomalies were found in the pyramid built under King Khufu.

They are now looking to conduct further tests on the 146m-high monument to determine its function, nature, and size.

The pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, named after the son of Pharaoh Snefru, is considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

It has three known chambers, and like other pyramids in Egypt was intended as a pharaoh’s tomb.

Operation Scan Pyramids scientists said: “We are now able to confirm the existence of a ‘void’ hidden behind the north face, that could have the form of at least one corridor going inside the Great Pyramid.”

Another ‘cavity’ was discovered on the pyramid’s northeast flank but there is currently no link between the two cavities, according to Mehdi Tayoubi, founder of the Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute (HIP).

He told Seeker: “Such void is shaped like a corridor and could go up inside the pyramid.”

The international Scan Pyramids team is lead by the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University, and the Paris-based HIP Institute.

They launched their mission in October last year to search for hidden rooms inside Khufu and its neighbor Khafre in Giza, as well as the Bent and Red pyramids in Dahshur, all south of Cairo.

The project applies a mix of infrared thermography, muon radiography imaging, and 3D reconstruction – all of which the researchers say are non-invasive and non-destructive techniques.

Scan Pyramids explained in a statement that muons are “similar to X-rays which can penetrate the body and allow bone imaging and ‘can go through hundreds of meters of stone before being absorbed.

“Judiciously placed detectors – for example inside a pyramid, below a potential, unknown chamber – can then record particle tracks and discern cavities from denser regions.”

In May scientists from the project released images and details of what they found at the Bent Pyramid, located at the royal necropolis of Dahshur.

They uncovered two entrances, one on the north side and one on the west side. They open onto two corridors, which in turn lead to a pair of burial chambers, one on top of the other.

It is the earliest to be built under the Old Kingdom Pharaoh Sneferu and is thought to be the first attempt at a smooth-sided structure. It had been thought the body of Pharaoh Sneferu was entombed inside the pyramid.

However, the scans scotched that theory – with no suitable chamber found inside the monument.

But Mehdi Tayoubi, president of the Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute, told Discovery: “Nevertheless, this is indeed a scientific breakthrough as it validates the muography principle applied to Egyptian pyramids.

“It paves the way to new investigations.”

Mummies With Golden Tongues Found in Egypt

An Egyptian archaeological mission has unearthed a new part of the Quweisna necropolis in Menoufiya governorate that is replete with mummies with golden tongues.

The discovery was made during excavations carried out in the central Nile Delta governorate in the past three months at the necropolis.

The mission also found a collection of clay pots, golden sheets in the shape of scarabs and lotus flowers, as well as a number of funerary stony amulets, scarabs, and vessels from the late ancient Egyptian, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods.
 
“The mummies with golden tongues are in a bad conservation condition,” said Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Waziri added that skeleton remains of mummies covered with golden sheets, wooden anthropoid coffins, and copper traces that were once used in making coffins were also found.
 
Ayman Ashmawi, head of the ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said that the newly discovered part of the necropolis has a different architectural style.

Ashmawi explained that this discovered part is made of mudbrick and composed of a main vaulted hall with three vaulted burial chambers and a burial shaft with two side chambers.

“Early studies on the burials, the mummies, and the funerary collection found indicate that this necropolis was used during three different periods: the late ancient Egyptian, the Ptolemaic, and part of the Roman period,” he added.

Quweisna necropolis, which is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, houses a collection of tombs and burial chambers from several archaeological eras. 

This collection reveals the changes in the architectural style of tombs and the burying methods used in the different ages. 

Quweisna is also home to a very distinguished necropolis for sacred birds.

During the past archaeological seasons, the mission has succeeded in uncovering a collection of tombs, remains of buildings, mummies, coffins, and sarcophagi, including a huge anthropoid sarcophagus carved in black granite for one of the senior priests of Atribis (today’s Banha in Qalioubiya governorate north of Cairo).