Egypt, Italian-Egyptian research team discovers new tomb with 35 mummies

Remarkable discovery in Aswan, Egypt, where a tomb containing as many as 35 mummies has been unearthed. This ancient burial site was discovered as part of excavations conducted by anEgyptian-Italian team of researchers(Egyptian-Italian Mission at West Aswan - Eimawa 2019) led by Patrizia Piacentini, professor of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology at theUniversity of Milan, and Abdelmanaem Said, of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The announcement of the discovery was made by the Ministry of Antiquities the day before yesterday.

The tomb, like the approximately 300 tombs already mapped by the team on the western bank of Aswan, is located in the area surrounding the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, is reported to have been used from the late Pharaonic period to the Roman period (i.e., from the sixth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D.), and has two burial chambers, one main and one side. It is learned that it was the burial place of a personage named Tjt.

In the main chamber 30 well-preserved mummies were found, some of them of young children deposited in a long side niche, an intact stretcher made of palm wood and linen strips used by the people who had deposited the mummies in the tomb. Also present were a trousseau that included jars containing bitumen for mummification, white cartonnage to be painted ( cartonnage is the material that was used for funerary masks) and others already painted, a well-preserved and painted wooden figurine of the Ba bird (pictured), representing the spirit of the deceased.

In the side chamber, four mummies were found, as well as amphorae and vessels still containing remains of food that were used for the “journey” the deceased had to make. Of note are two overlapping mummies, probably of a mother and her son, still covered by painted cartonnage and a sarcophagus dug directly into the rocky floor.

Egypt, Italian-Egyptian research team discovers new tomb with 35 mummies

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