As the world looks on, the mummy returns...
IN THEIR day, the ancient Egyptians, with their colossal monuments and macabre preservation methods, were at the cutting edge.
Now, thousands of years later in a necropolis on the western bank of the Nile, the mysterious old ways have collided with the new.
In scenes resembling a US crime drama, archaeologists wearing protective gear unveiled the mummy of a woman – a painstaking procedure carried out in front of the world’s Press for the first time. They carefully lifted a white sheet draped over the 3,000-year-old sarcophagus, revealing the colourful decorations and hieroglyphs for the cameras. Then, with their hearts in their mouths and with the utmost precision, the team lifted the lid on the precious remains that had lain within for millennia.
Inside was the intact mummy of a woman, thought to have been called Thuya, wrapped tightly in linen.
Almost 300 cubic metres of rubble had to be removed to get to the sarcophagus, which dates from the 18th dynasty.
It was one of two unearthed earlier this month by a Frenchled mission in El-Asasif in Luxor, southern Egypt.
Located between the royal tombs at the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Kings, the El-Asasif necropolis is the burial site of nobles and senior officials close to the pharaohs. The first sarcophagus had been examined by Egyptian antiquities officials but the unveiling on Saturday was the first time authorities had opened the contents of a sarcophagus before an international audience. ‘One sarcophagus was rishistyle, which dates back to the 17th dynasty, while the other sarcophagus was from the 18th dynasty,’ Egypt’s minister of antiquities Khaled Al Anani said. The 18th dynasty dates to the 13th century BC, a period noted for some of the most well-known pharaohs, including Tutankhamun and Ramses II. The second sarcophagus contained the body of Thaw-Irkhetif, the mummification supervisor at the Temple of Mut in Karnak. The tomb had five coloured masks and some 1,000 Ushabti statues – the miniature figurine of servants intended to work in the afterlife. It also contained other mummies, skeletons, skulls and coloured ceiling paintings depicting the owner and his family. The tomb dates to the Middle Kingdom almost 4,000 years ago. Egypt has revealed over a dozen ancient discoveries this year and officials hope they will improve its image and revive interest among tourists who once flocked to its pyramids but have avoided the country since its 2011 uprising.