(ANSAmed) - MILAN, APRIL 23 - A tomb has been found in Egypt
with 35 mummies, sarcophagi, amphorae, vases and materials for
funerary masks.
Considered a necropolis, in use from the late Pharaonic
period to the Roman period (6th century BC-4th century AD), it
emerged from the sands of Aswan along with a hieroglyphic that
bears the name of its owner, TJT, thanks to the excavations
conducted by the Italian-Egyptian mission coordinated by the
University of Milan and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquity.
The excavations, under the direction of Patrizia Piacentini,
who teaches Cultures of the Ancient Near East, Middle East, and
Africa from the University of Milan, along with Abdelmanaem Said
from the Ministry of Egyptian Antiquities, mapped about 300
tombs dating back to between the 6th century BC to the 4th
century AD, located on the western bank of Aswan in the area
around the Mausoleum of Aga Khan.
The tomb, which had been looted by thieves in antiquity,
contains a main funerary chamber and a lateral one.
In the first some 30 well-conserved mummies were found,
including some of small children that had been left in a long
lateral niche, and propped up against a wall, an intact
stretcher in palm wood and linen strips, used by people who had
deposited the mummies in the tomb.
Decorating it were vases containing bitumen for
mummification, white 'cartonnages' ready to be painted and
others already painted, a wooden statue in a good state of
conservation and painted as a Ba-Bird, representing the spirit
of the deceased.
In the second funerary room, four mummies were found with
vases containing the remains of food, fundamental for the
'journey' that the deceased was about to make.
Two mummies on top of each other, probably a mother and her
son, were still covered in painted 'cartonnage', a sort of
funerary mask made out of papyrus, while a sarcophagus was dug
directly into the rocky floor.(ANSAmed).
