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Surprise Finds at Egypt Temple "Change Everything" Steven Stanek in Luxor, Egypt for National Geographic NewsDecember 17, 2007 A series of surprising discoveries has been made at the foot of Egypt's famous Temple of Amun at Karnak, archaeologists say. The new finds include ancient ceremonial baths, a pharaoh's private entry ramp, and the remains of a massive wall built some 3,000 years ago to reinforce what was then the bank of the Nile River. A host of other artifacts, including hundreds of bronze coins, has also been found. Together the discoveries are causing experts to reconsider the history of the...

Excavation work carried out by an American mission from New York University at the temple of Ramses II in Abydos has stumbled upon a menagerie of mummified animals that provides previously undocumented evidence of cultic worship through the ages.The most significant find at the site is over 2,000 mummified heads of rams from the Ptolemaic period along with other mummified ewes, dogs, wild goats, cows, gazelles and mongooses, said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.The mummified remains, some still in their linen wrappings, were found stored in one of the recently discovered magazines within the temple’s northern...

Archaeologists have long known about the Great Revolt, a battle between the ancient Egyptians and the Ptolemaic Kingdom that lasted from 207 B.C. to 184 B.C., because it is mentioned on the Rosetta Stone and in other historical texts. But now, archaeologists have finally discovered the exact location of one of the revolt's battles.In 2009, archaeologists began excavating a site known as Tell el-Timai, where an ancient Greco-Roman industrial city called Thmouis was located on the Nile Delta of northern Egypt. The excavations were part of the Tell Timai Archaeological Project, an ongoing program by the University of Hawaii to...

A team of archaeologists from the Czech institute of Egyptology have unearthed a tomb in the Abusir necropolis, near to modern-day Cairo, Egypt. The tomb belongs to an Egyptian dignitary named Wahibre-mery-Neith, who lived during the 26th or 27th Dynasty (5th century BC)...The site was first excavated in 2021, where archaeologists found the largest ancient embalming cache in Egypt, containing 370 pottery storage jars that held materials used in the mummification of Wahibre-mery-Neith...At the bottom of the shaft the researchers found a double sarcophagus situated directly on a filling of sand, but discovered that the tomb had already been robbed...

The faces of three ancient Egyptian men who lived up to 2,797 years ago have been reconstructed using genetic data extracted from their mummified remains. It is the first time such a technique has been used on human DNA of that age. The trio came from Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient city on a floodplain to the south of Cairo, and are estimated to have been buried some time between 780 BC and 5 AD.... ...'This is the first time comprehensive DNA phenotyping has been performed on human DNA of this age,' Parabon said in a statement. The firm's experts found...

Wojtek Ejsmond, one of the three co-founders of the Warsaw Mummy Project, told CNN the mummy was first brought to Poland in 1826 by Jan Wężyk-Rudzki. At that time it was believed to be a woman, but the view changed during the 1920s when an inscription on the sarcophagus was translated to reveal the name of an Egyptian priest, Hor-Djehuty. Though it belongs to the University of Warsaw, the mummy has been on loan to the museum since 1917 where it has been on display. During the course of its research, the team revealed some interesting clues. Using computer tomography,...

Egyptian archaeologists have revealed another massive haul of priceless artifacts from the Saqqara Necropolis, a bountiful site near Cairo that likely still holds untold secrets. On display Monday were dozens of newly-discovered, beautifully decorated coffins or sarcophagi, still sealed up with their owners mummified inside, along with dozens of bronze statues.Monday's big reveal, with artifacts lined up in front of Saqqara's Step Pyramid of Djoser for journalists to admire, was the fifth by the archaeologists working at the site since 2018, and there are still many years of work left to carry out there.The latest discoveries, including about 250 still-sealed...

Archaeologists from an Egyptian archaeological mission have discovered 85 tombs, a watch tower and a temple site at Gabal El Haridi in the Sohag region of Egypt.Previous surveys of Gabal El Haridi have revealed significant archaeological material from the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom to the late Roman Empire and Coptic period.During the latest season of excavations, researchers found a mudbrick tower that was used to levy taxes and guard the traffic on the Nile River. The tower dates from around the reign of Ptolemy III, the third pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt from 246 to 222...

The Egyptian-German mission has uncovered a collection of decorated blocks and fragments from the King Nactanebo I temple at the Matariya archaeological site in Heliopolis.Aymen Ashmawy, head of the ancient Egyptian antiquities sector and head of the mission from the Egyptian side, explains that the inscriptions mention the regnal years 13 and 14... as well as the dimensions and the materials used in this sanctuary.“Several blocks were unfinished too and no further decoration work seems to have been commissioned after the death of Nectanebo I...” he said, adding that other architectural elements attest to the building projects of Ramesses II...

Twenty miles south of Cairo, on the Nile's west bank, where riverfed crop fields give way to desert, the ancient site of Saqqara is marked by crumbling pyramids that emerge from the sand like dragon's teeth. Most striking is the famous Step Pyramid, built in the 27th century B.C. by Djoser, the Old Kingdom pharaoh who launched the tradition of constructing pyramids as monumental royal tombs. More than a dozen other pyramids are scattered along the five-mile strip of land, which is also dotted with the remains of temples, tombs and walkways that, together, span the entire history of ancient...

An Egyptian archaeological mission has uncovered the third section of a Greaco-Roman winery and its store galleries surrounded by a mud brick wall at Abu Al-Matameer archaeological site in Beheira governorate. Adjacent is a residential settlement that was once used by the winery employees. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the galleries of the winery have a distinct architectural design, with thick mud brick walls of different sizes. Some of the walls bear in their mortar small blocks of limestone that appear to have been inserted randomly. "These blocks may have been used...

Recently discovered tomb of official dating back more than 2,000 years contains dozens of animals and two mummies Dozens of mummified mice were among the animals found in an ancient Egyptian tomb that was unveiled on Friday. The well-preserved and finely painted tomb near the Egyptian town of Sohag – a desert area near the Nile about 390km (242 miles) south of Cairo – is thought to be from the early Ptolemaic period, dating back more than 2,000 years.... ...Ptolemaic rule spanned about three centuries until the Roman conquest in 30 BC.

Two weeks ago, archaeologists in Egypt found a massive black granite sarcophagus in Alexandria, untouched for 2,000 years - and fleet-footed rumour quickly got to work. Could it contain the remains of ancient Greek leader Alexander the Great, or (less appealingly) a deadly curse? According to experts who have now unsealed it, it's a no to both. Instead, it revealed three skeletons and red-brown sewage water, which gave off an unbearable stench.Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities had appointed a committee of archaeologists to open the relic, which was unearthed at a construction site. According to Egyptian news outlet El-Watan, they initially...

A mysterious ancient black granite sarcophagus has been discovered in Egypt. The tomb, which dates back to the Ptolemaic period between 305 B.C. and 30 B.C., was uncovered in the city of Alexandria. In a Facebook post, Dr. Mostafa Waziri, general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the 6-foot high sarcophagus, which is 8.7-feet long and 5.4-feet wide, is the largest ever found in Alexandria. The sarcophagus was found buried 16.4 feet below the surface. A layer of mortar between the lid and the body of the sarcophagus indicates that it has not been opened since it...