Egypt uncovers chamber of mummies

Egypt has unearthed an ancient burial site containing at least 17 mummies, most fully intact.


It is the latest in a string of discoveries that the country's antiquities minister described as a helping hand from the crypt for its struggling tourism sector.

The site was uncovered eight metres below ground in Minya, a province about 250km south of Cairo.

It contained limestone and clay sarcophagi, animal coffins, and papyrus inscribed with Demotic script.

The burial chamber was first detected last year by a team of Cairo University students using radar.

The mummies have not yet been dated but are believed to date to Egypt's Greco-Roman period, a roughly 600-year span that followed the country's conquest by Alexander the Great in 332BC, according to Mohamed Hamza, a Cairo University archaeology dean in charge of the excavations.
  [rte.ie]
13/5/17