THE MUMMIES
another year to discover a hidden sixth burial chamber with more mummies behind a false stone wall.
“Very few workshops devoted to the process have been properly excavated,” says Dietrich Raue, curator of the University of Leipzig Egyptian Museum. “That leads to a big gap in our knowledge.”
The finds include the first gilded silver mummy mask seen in Egypt since 1939.
It’s only the third such mask to ever be found in Egypt, with exquisite craftsmanship and an advanced metalworking technique that involves plating worked silver with a fine layer of gold.
The team also found an unprecedented six canopic jars holding organs, suggesting an entirely new form of burial.
For thousands of years the standard number of these sacred vessels used to store the mummified organs of the dead was four, each guarded by a special god.
There was also evidence of a previously unknown cult worshipping a mysterious snake goddess.
This was identified from inscriptions of “Priests of Niut-shaes” found on three mummies.
Two elite priests buried in the shaft were also found to be of Libyan descent.
It showed that in just a few generations of their families moving to Egypt, these immigrants reached one of the highest ranks in Egyptian society.
One mummy was entombed with crossed arms in a divine position usually reserved only for pharaohs.
While surveying the 3D scan of one mummy called “Ayawet”, Hussein spotted the rare crossed arms on his chest, suggesting he could have been a priest of high status.
And in a rare archaeological coincidence, two of the mummies might be mother and son, buried only 13ft apart.
New technology will give the viewer a hugely detailed picture.
A medical CT scanner created a 3D digital replica of the sacred canopic jars and their organic contents, a process that has only ever been performed on a handful of such jars.
The archaologists also used 3D scanning to create integrated models of underground areas.
● Kingdom Of The Mummies, National Geographic, June 14, time to be set
‘Every single cup or bowl has the name of the substance it held, and the days the embalming procedure was used’