It is an excellent news in the middle of the current morosity we are facing up to. This Saturday 15th of November, Egypt discovered not less than a hundred sarcophagi in Saqqara, while about sixty sarcophagi had already been found last month in the same locality. And according to Khaled el-Enani, the Egyptian minister of tourism and antiquities, this is not finished yet since more discoveries are expected to be made in the next few days!
Last month, the incredible treasure was a bunch of sarcophagi with more than 2 500 years of age, making them dating back to the Late Period of Ancient Egypt (664-332 Before Christ). This one time, the hundred or so sarcophagi which have been dug up are dealing with two periods of the Egyptian antiquity: the Late Period of Ancient Egypt, but also the years after and the Ptolemaic dynasty (332-30 Before Christ), an era corresponding to the rise of Greco-Roman Egypt under Alexander the Great, before his death in 323 BC paved the way for the Hellenistic period and the rule of the Lagids in Egypt. The Lagids were run by Ptolemy in the very beginning, one of Alexander’s Diadochi (the companions of Alexander who ruled his empire at his death), until the fall under the sway of the Romans in 30 BC.
On top of everything, funeral masks and about forty statues of Egyptian divinities were also found in the funeral wells of Saqqara. Thanks to all those discoveries, the Egyptian government hopes to bring a new breath to its tourism. Usually praised by foreign tourists, the country has been suffering over the last few years and its power of attraction is decreasing, due to the pandemic but also the political uncertainty since the 2011 revolution.
Sources: www.lefigaro.fr
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