Egypt Travel Blog

More Unsealed Mummies Discovered at Saqqara

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Newly unearthed mummy at Saqqara inside of a tent set up at the archaeological site as excavations continue. (Photo Credit: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

If you’ve ever wandered around the rocky grounds of the Saqqara royal necropolis, the site of the Pharaoh Djoser’s famous Step Pyramid just south of the most famous pyramids at Giza, you’ve likely walked above hundreds of undiscovered treasures, mummies, and noble tombs still hidden in the ground beneath your feet.

Frequent readers of the Egypt Travel Blog and listeners to the Egypt Travel Podcast will know what I’m about to say next – all of Egypt is still an active archaeological site, with the ground below still packed full of undiscovered artefacts, including more royal tombs, mummies, and priceless treasures.

So it should come as no surprise to any of us that yet another cache of mummies, still sealed in their colorfully decorated sarcophagi, has been discovered at Saqqara. Over the past several months, a total of 57 new mummies have been unearthed at Saqqara, with 14 new coffins discovered in early September (2020) and another 13 discovered later that same month.

All of the newly discovered sarcophagi were still sealed, meaning that Egyptologists will be opening them for the first time since they were closed and entombed more than 2,500 years ago, according to estimates of their age.

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has said that the newly discovered mummies will eventually be put on display at the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.

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