Embalming workshops for humans and animals found at Egypt’s Saqqara site
A leading Egyptian archaeologist has unveiled the discovery of two embalming workshops – one for humans, the other for animals – at the Saqqara necropolis, south-east of Cairo.
Along with two small tombs, a sarcophagus, statues and funerary amulets, they are the latest finds by Egyptian archaeologists working at the site, 24km from the capital, since 2018.
“We found embalming workshops, one for humans and one for animals,” Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said at the unveiling on Saturday. “We found all the [embalming] tools that they used in ancient times.”
Mr Waziri, who was joined at the ceremony by Tourism Minister Ahmed Issa, conducted a tour of the workshops, found buried beneath a hill.
They showed clear divisions into separate rooms, probably for different stages of the mummification process.
Stone beds – two metres long and 50cm wide – upon which remains would be laid and bathed in embalming fluid were also discovered.
Nitrate salt, black resin, wooden stirring sticks and rolls of linen, all used in the embalming process, were found at both workshops.
One of the tombs discovered belonged to a dignitary named Ne Hesut Ba from the Fifth Dynasty, from around 2465 BC to 2323 BC.
An alabaster statue of him was found hidden in a niche within his tomb.
Inscriptions in the tomb said he was head of scribes and a priest of the god Horus. Details written on his statue revealed that he was also charged with digging canals and waterways for the state.
The second tomb belonged to a priest named Men Kheber, whose remains date to the Eighteenth Dynasty, from about 1400 BC.
Both tombs were decorated with colourful scenes of daily life, including images of cultivation and hunting on the tomb of Ne Hesut Ba
Led by Mr Waziri, the Egyptian team’s first major discovery in Saqqara was the tomb of the high priest Wahtye, dating back about 4,500 years to the Old Kingdom period.
Then a few months later, the mission discovered numerous animal mummies.
In October 2020, the team found a cache of 59 sarcophagi and mummies at Saqqara.
Two similar finds followed, one of 157 sarcophagi with their mummies and, in May last year, 250 sarcophagi and mummies.
“When we found so many mummies and sarcophagi in one place, we knew it was only a matter of time until we found the embalming workshops,” Mr Waziri said. “Today we are unveiling them.”
All the mission’s discoveries are currently on display at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation and the Grand Egyptian Museum, which it is estimated will open towards the end of the year.
“An important aspect of our mission’s work was to exhibit our discoveries at museums and not to leave them in storage rooms,” Mr Waziri said.
Excavations on the west of the site are set to continue soon.
The Saqqara necropolis was established just outside the ancient Egyptian administrative city of Memphis during the Early Dynastic period – about 2900 BC to 2649 BC – and remained in use for more than 3,000 years.
The site is also home to the oldest pyramid in Egypt, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, which dates back about 4,700 years to the Third Dynasty.