Fourteen Graeco-Roman Tombs Discovered at the Bahariya Oasis, Egypt

Submitted by Ann on Mon, 04/12/2010 - 11:40

Graeco-Roman Tombs discovered at the Bahariya Oasis - Mummy Detail A collection of 14 Graeco-Roman tombs, artefacts and a mummy dating to the third century BC have been discovered in a cemetery in the Ain El-Zawya area of Bawiti, a town in the Bahariya Oasis, Egypt. The find is early evidence of a large Graeco-Roman necropolis at the site.

The tombs were found during excavation works ahead of the building of a local youth centre in the area, about 260 miles southwest of Cairo. Dr. Mahmoud Affifi, director of Cairo and Giza antiquities, said that the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has halted construction and has started legal procedures to bring the area under SCA control.

Affifi adds that the tombs have a unique interior design consisting of a long stairway leading to a corridor which ends in a hall containing mastabas at its corners that were used in ~~burning~~ burying the dead.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said the newly discovered tombs are rock-hewn, and that early investigations have unearthed four anthropoid masks made of plaster, a gold fragment decorated with a scene of the four sons of the god Horus, and a collection of coins, as well as clay and glass vessels.

The excavation has also unearthed the mummy of a 97cm-tall woman, covered with coloured plaster featuring her in Roman dress and wearing some of her jewellery.

The Bahariya Oasis - known in ancient times as 'the Northern Oasis' - is also where in 1996 Hawass' team discovered the Valley of the Golden Mummies, where an impressive collection of 17 tombs with 254 mummies have been unearthed. With a constant water supply and metal deposits nearby, the oasis has been a centre of activity since the Paleolithic period. During Alexander the Great's rule in Egypt a temple in his honour was constructed at the site - at that point an important trade location. The oasis community prospered during the reign of Alexander, and counted many Greeks among its ranks.

Read 23 comments, or leave your own

About The Author

Ann Wuyts (follow me: e-mail or

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Last three pieces by this author:

Unique Iron Age Hoard goes on display at Ipswich Museum | Royal Artefacts - Including King Tut's Golden Trumpet - Returned to Egyptian Museum Cairo | SCA releases full list of treasures missing from the Cairo Museum

Ann 'Vint' Wuyts is looking after the Heritage Key community and avatar health & entertainment. She is slightly fascinated by everything to do with 3D technology and what's commonly defined as 'Web 2.0'. When she grows up, Ann - eventually - wants to be a mummy. Favourite game: Buzzword Bingo /…

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Comments

francesca:

Do you have a link to the original report? Or some other source for this information? (As I'm reading this at 12:45 GMT, there are no external links in the post.) Thanks.

Mon, 12-04-2010 12:45

francesca:

Also, the link for Z. Hawass in this article goes to your HK page on Alexander the Great. It's hilarious and I'm sure ZH would love it, but it should probably be fixed!

Mon, 12-04-2010 12:54

Ann:

Hi Francesca, no web reports yet, as far as I know, but unless the Supreme Council of Antiquities is playing a belated April Fool's joke, this information is correct. Fourteen Graeco-Roman tombs, one mummy, a tiny bit of gold and various kitchenware. ;)

I've unlinked Dr Hawass (to heritage expert page now) and Alexander the Great (to great personality), thanks for pointing that out. We don't want him to be upside down or reversed in his tomb - if it is ever discovered.

Mon, 12-04-2010 12:58

francesca:

Thanks, Ann. So what was your source for the information in your post? Personal communication?

Mon, 12-04-2010 13:15

Ann:

Hi Francesca, as I've said in my previous comment (but maybe not obvious enough) the SCA has officially released his information. If you do a thorough Google search, you'll see AFP brings the story now as well (English and French version of the story have different images.) "Egypt archaeologists uncover Roman mummy (AFP) – 1 hour ago"

Mon, 12-04-2010 13:24

francesca:

So...why not put a link to that story in your post? That's what I'm confused about.

As an educator, I would like to use HK more for teaching. But I am often concerned about the lack of external links/verification in the posts here. I teach my students to evaluate archaeology/history websites in terms of the external verification of the information, as a means to teach them about citing sources within their own research papers, etc.

Mon, 12-04-2010 13:29

Ann:

Francesca, because at the time I was writing this (and when it went online), there was no story from AFP yet. It would be very unpractical - if not insecure - for me to include a link to my webmail, together with my password and login? ;) I'll next time kick off the story with 'according to the SCA'. (Although if there are quotes or mentionings from Dr Hawass, that most of the time is implicated.)

Mon, 12-04-2010 14:20

Anthony Holmes:

In the story it reports that mastabas were used for BURNING the dead. Surely this should be BURYING the dead. I don't know of any reference to cremation in ancient Egyptian funeral rights:)

Mon, 12-04-2010 15:59

Ann:

Anthony, corrected. I guess the SCA did put a belated April Fool's joke in after all, then. ;)

Mon, 12-04-2010 16:03

Francesca:

OK, so in other words, if your readers don't see external links or verifications, you are simply saying "take my word for it"?

If you have those contacts with the SCA or Hawass or whomever, it doesn't seem unreasonable vis-à-vis the HK style to say "according to a press release" or "according to an email from Dr. X." Otherwise, the story seems like an unprovenanced artifact.

Mon, 12-04-2010 16:17

Ann:

No, I was more going with take Dr Hawass and and Dr Affifi's word for it, hence the use of "Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, said..." and "Dr. Mahmoud Affifi, director of Cairo and Giza antiquities, said...". But honestly - and as said above -, I'll next time mention it is information given out by the SCA and opt for 'According to a statement issued by the SCA, Dr. Mahmoud Affifi, director of Cairo and Giza antiquities, said... ."

Which should make clear were statements by Dr Hawass and Dr Affifi, and that - en plus - add that the information on their statements (and images, as you can see on their credit) comes from the SCA, and then it is up to you to take the SCA's word for it or not. (Because, apparently, they at least got the burning/burying wrong.)

Mon, 12-04-2010 16:36

veigapaula:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jEqtQwikRkrkg6EE6hed0...

The one metre (three feet) long gypsum sarcophagus portrays a woman dressed in Roman robes and contains a mummified woman or girl who died in the Greco-Roman period about 2300 years ago.

"We are sure (the mummy) is female. Either she was a small woman, and mummies always shrink, or she could have been a young woman," Zahi Hawass, chief of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP.

These are the only information pieces regarding the mummy...

Mon, 12-04-2010 18:48

Ava:

I am amazed at how well they were preserved. It makes you wonder why that practice is no longer used. Future generations could learn much from us if it were. This is a great find.

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Tue, 13-04-2010 12:52

Ann:

Ava, lack of space for storage? ;)

Tue, 13-04-2010 12:58

Sean Williams:

It's funny, Ava, two of the main trends we've noticed over the course of the Ancient World in London video series are that a) ancient people embraced the idea of death, whereas we very much run from it, crouching in the corner with our fingers in our ears; and b) everything today is built with a sell-by, not to 'last forever' as most great ancient monuments were. Sadly it seems this will have a negative effect on how people in the future view us, unless they've mastered time travel!

Wed, 14-04-2010 10:31

Retep:

May not have not just been religious - I have an academic friend who raises the possibility that in origin mummification was an early form of meat storage against famine (human jerky? :-) ) and we do have evidence of ritual cannibalism in Africa.

Fri, 23-04-2010 22:14

veigapaula:

The origin of human mummification lies in the fact that deceased were just buried in the desert and post inhumations gave people the idea that the bodies first buried were in excellent shape. This had an impact on religious beliefs and people (I mean Egyptians) started to artificially preserve the bodies of deceased so they were in excellent shape for their afterlife.

I believe it has been published by the Hierankonpolis team that the earliest artificially mummified humans were found there.

No meat preserving nor cannibalism involved here...

Sat, 24-04-2010 14:58

Ann:

Glad to hear that, the idea 5,000 years-old human err... salami? is quite terrifying. Paula, in Metro one of the past days, there was a short story about how chimps actually mourn their dead, some mommy-monkeys dragging the corpses of deceased infants around for weeks. So.. I guess it all falls under 'not wanting to let go'. (Combined with believe in reassembly and ressurection, in case of our Ancient friends. ;)

Wed, 28-04-2010 22:42

macedon:

hi,.....

Egypt was rulled by Macedonians,NOT GREEKS....

Greeks were wanished...by Macedonians....

note:

in this time,greece dont exist....name greece is from 19 cent. -made in Bavaria (Germany)

Fri, 27-08-2010 09:37

Robert876:

ITs a big discover but i'm agree with MACEDON, Egypt was rulled by them hehe.

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Thu, 31-03-2011 21:47

Nauka jazdy bielsko-biala:

This is realy interesting discover

Fri, 06-05-2011 16:15

accouting multi:

<p>wow, thank ann, god bless u</p>

Thu, 22-09-2011 02:53

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