The Secretary General of the Supreme Antiquities told "Asha": Egyptian archaeological missions are achieving important discoveries and successes

egypt Tue, Apr. 18, 2023
The Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Mostafa Waziri, appreciated the efforts of the Egyptian archaeological missions operating throughout Egypt, pointing out that there are about 50 Egyptian archaeological missions operating at the level of the Republic and achieving important discoveries and successes.

Waziri said - in a statement to the Middle East News Agency, that the Egyptian mission working in the cemetery of sacred animals in the Saqqara antiquities area has made many important discoveries since it began its work 5 years ago.

He added that the Egyptian mission in Saqqara, which he heads, discovered last May the first and largest papyrus in hieratic script, and its content is a book of the dead of Ahmose written in hieratic script and dates back to the beginning of the Ptolemaic era.

He explained that this papyrus, which he called (Papyrus Waziri 1), was found inside the coffin of a person called Ahmose, and it was wrapped in its original condition and in an excellent state of preservation.

He praised the efforts of the Egyptian restoration experts in the laboratories of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, who dealt with the papyrus with the utmost professionalism to come out in the form in which it appeared when it was displayed on the sidelines of the celebration, with the opening of the first phase of the project to develop the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir last February.

And he added that the Egyptian mission in Saqqara in 2018 managed to discover the tomb of the priest of the Fifth Dynasty (and even), 7 rock tombs from the New and Old Kingdoms and a cemetery facade from the Old Kingdom, while in 2019 a stash of sacred animals containing more than a thousand amulets was discovered. And dozens of wooden cat statues, cat mummies, wooden statues, and animal mummies.

He pointed out that the year 2020 witnessed another success for the Egyptian mission, which was able to find an archaeological discovery that was classified as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of 2020 and the most eye-catching according to the American Archeology magazine, where more than 100 closed wooden coffins were found in their first state of the era. The latecomer was inside burial wells, and 40 statues of the god of the Saqqara necropolis (Ptah Soker) with gilded parts, and 20 wooden boxes of the god Horus.

He pointed out that the Egyptian mission was able - during the mission's excavation season last year - to discover the first and largest cache of bronze statues in the Bobastian cemetery in Saqqara, which includes 150 bronze statues of ancient Egyptian gods, in addition to 250 closed colored wooden coffins containing mummies.