Ancient stone and wooden tombs containing the mummified bodies of high priests and officials from 3,400 years ago have been unearthed in Egypt.
The cemetery includes coffins inscribed with the names of two women, while a papyrus featuring the Book of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ was also discovered along with a number of amulets and ornaments.
It was uncovered in the Al-Ghuraifa area of Tuna El-Gebel necropolis in Minya, 136 miles (220km) south of the country’s capital, Cairo.
The burial site dates back to the New Kingdom era, a period when Egypt became a global power between the 16th and the 11th century BC.
This period of ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty, and the Twentieth Dynasty from 1549 BC to 1069 BC.
What was Egypt’s New Kingdom era?
The New Kingdom era was a period when Egypt became a global power.
This period of ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty, and the Twentieth Dynasty from 1549 BC to 1069 BC.
The Eighteenth Dynasty ended in 1292 BC after around 300 years and is now considered among the most prosperous years of Ancient Egypt.
Also known as the Thutmosid dynasty, it includes some of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, including Tutankhamun, Hatshepsut and Akhenaten.
Among the new finds was an engraved, coloured wooden coffin of a daughter of a high priest of Djehuti, an ancient Egyptian god also known as Thoth.
He was the god of the moon, sacred texts, mathematics, the sciences, magic, messenger and recorder of the deities, and was often depicted as an ibis bird or a baboon.
Archaeologists also revealed they had found a papyrus that is around 50ft (15 metres) long and in good condition ‘as if it were coloured yesterday’.
It will now be displayed in the Grand Egyptian Museum.
The cemetery includes a large number of rock-cut tombs and hundreds of other archaeological finds, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).
‘We have been looking for this New Kingdom cemetery for seven years and we finally found it in this excavation season,’ said Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the SCA.
The Al-Ghuraifa area in Minya, which was discovered in 1925, is renowned for its archaeological discoveries, including 35 tombs, 90 coffins, and 10,000 statues.
MailOnline has contacted the Ministry of Antiquities for more information about the latest find.
Egypt has unveiled several major archaeological discoveries in recent years, most notably in the Saqqara necropolis south of the capital Cairo.
Inscribed on all sides with emblems, hiéroglyphs and тιтles, the up to 3,300-year-old stone coffin was found in pristine condition and in its original tomb 23 feet underground.
