CAIRO: Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) on Thursday announced that archaeologists in the country have unearthed nearly 400 bronze coins that date back to the Ptolemaic period in the 3rd century BCE. The 383 coins have been linked with King Ptolemy III, who was an ancestor of Cleopatra, the SCA said in a statement. The SCA said that on one side of the coins was a hybrid Greek-Egyptian god Amun-Zeus and on the other side an eagle with the words Ptolemy and king were inscribed in Greek. Ptolemy was one of the Ptolemaic rulers of ancient Egypt who ruled for nearly 300 years after the country was conquered by Alexander the Great. It combined the two dominant Mediterranean cultures, Greece and Egypt, together. The coins were unearthed north of Qarun lake in the Fayoum Oasis 50 miles southwest of Cairo. Along with the coins, the SCA said it also unearthed three necklaces made of ostrich egg shells that dated back as far as the 4th millennium BCE as well as a pot of eyeliner from the Ottoman Empire. The SCA statement said the objects will be displayed in the Grand Egyptian Museum currently under construction near the great pyramids of Giza, but it is unclear when that will open. BM
