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Tombs Emerge From Egypt Sands
Photograph courtesy Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities
Workers and archaeologists stand at the 4,200-year-old site of two rock-hewn Egyptian tombs recently excavated near Cairo and unveiled Thursday.
Featuring boldly painted false doors, the tombs are the last resting places of Shendwa, head of the royal scribes under Pharaoh Pepi II, and his son Khonsu, also a scribe. Both were members of the literate ruling class during ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom (2686 to 2160 B.C.), during which most of Egypt's pyramids were built (ancient Egypt time line).
Occupying a thousand-square-foot (300-square-meter) site, the tombs were found in the royal burial ground at Saqqara (map)—strangely far from the tomb of Pepi II."We never expected to find a tomb that belongs to [the period of] that king" at the dig site, said Abdul Hakeem Karar, director of the Saqqara necropolis for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
(Related King Tut pictures: "DNA Study Reveals Health Secrets.")
—Andrew Bossone in Cairo
Published July 9, 2010
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False Door
Photograph courtesy Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities
The newfound tomb of Shendwa includes a false door inscribed with his name and titles, a standard ancient Egyptian prayer, and a picture of the deceased at an offering table, archaeologists announced Thursday. (Translate your name into hieroglyphs.)
Found in tombs from all periods of pharaonic Egypt, false doors were believed to enable contact between the realms of the living and the dead. (See "False Doors for the Dead Among New Egypt Tomb Finds.")
"The spirit of the deceased is supposed to go through the body via the false door," Karar said.
(Also see "Nefertiti's Real, Wrinkled Face Found in Famous Bust?")
Published July 9, 2010
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Ancient Offerings
Photograph courtesy Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities
As his father is shown doing in his tomb, royal scribe Khonsu sits at an offering table painted on a false door in his burial chambers.
Relatives and priests would have visited the tomb and placed food and drink on an actual stone offering table (not pictured) found beside the false door. According to tradition, the offerings would have passed from the table to Khonsu via the false door.
The arrangement would "keep him in touch with his relatives," Karar said. "They gave him food and supplies all the way through the afterlife."
(Download Egypt wallpapers.)
Published July 9, 2010
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Ducking Into the Afterlife
Photograph courtesy Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities
Limestone jars—some shaped like ducks and containing duck bones—litter the burial shaft of Shendwa's tomb in an undated picture. Found just under Shendwa's false door, the shaft is about six stories below ground level.
Though humidity and erosion have disintegrated Shendwa's sarcophagus, his burial chamber does hold some comparatively durable goods, including the foot-tall (30-centimeter-tall) obelisk at rear in the picture.
"This obelisk is a symbol of worshiping the sun god Re," Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a press statement.
(Also see "Pharaoh Seti I's Tomb Bigger Than Thought.")
Published July 9, 2010
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Special Delivery
Photograph courtesy Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities
Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, is lowered into the tomb of Shendwa in an undated picture.
Once unearthed, Shendwa's rock-cut tomb was revealed to be an open court about 5-by-4 meters (16-by-13 feet). The nearby tomb of his son is about 3-by-1.5 meters (9.8-by-4.9 feet).
Karar, archaeological director of the Saqqara necropolis, said getting down into the tombs for excavations "was difficult, but you know, we do that all the time."
(The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
Published July 9, 2010
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