CAIRO: A Mummy was found under a building site for a youth center in Bahariya Oasis cemetery, 190 miles southwest of Cairo. The 97 cm female mummy was discovered by Egyptian archaeologists. The mummy was completely covered in plaster and adorned with jewelry and eyes, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) told Bikya Masr. They also discovered 14 tombs and in those tombs were clay and glass vessels, coins, anthropoid masks and pieces of gold. The pieces of gold contained the four sons of Horus – Imsety, Duamutef, Hapi and Qebehsenuef, who were ancient Egyptian gods. This shows the influence of ancient Egyptian religion in the Greco-Roman era, archaeologists said. These gods were believed to protect the stomach, liver, intestines and lungs of the mummified. After unearthing the mummy she was sent to the lab for restoration. There they took photographs of the artifacts and cleaned them up in preparation for study. The planned youth center had called the SCA before construction was to begin. The youth center was then turned into an excavation site, when the first sign of ancient artifacts were first revealed last November. “They asked us to come and we started to dig,†said Mahmoud Affifi, the Director of Cairo and Giza Antiquities. “When we found some evidence we stopped the work and started the scientific excavation research.†Affifi added “I think there is a lot of tombs there. “I’m experienced, I have worked for 27 years and I can know,†Affifi said, “for me when I visit a site I can know if there is something or not. “For example, we found this beautiful tomb, beautiful statues but we don’t who they were for,” Affifi continued. “Nothing was written on the mummy, but if you find a shattered piece of pottery or text and you can learn a lot of history.” BM
