Dr. Mostafa Waziri, a world-renowned archaeologist, is the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the government body responsible for all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt. A well-known personality to any who watch National Geographic or Discovery Channel, Dr. Waziri is the ideal person to share Egypt’s latest and most fascinating discoveries with us. He headed up the 2022 mission that discovered five 4,000-year-old tombs and the 2018 excavation of Whati's Tomb, both in the Saqqara necropolis.
THE INDEPENDENT 19 MARCH 2022 - EGYPT DISPLAYS RECENTLY DISCOVERED ANCIENT TOMBS IN SAQQARA
Egypt has put on display recently discovered, well-decorated ancient tombs at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo
Egypt on Saturday displayed recently discovered, well-decorated ancient tombs at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.
The five tombs, unearthed earlier this month, date back to the Old Kingdom (1570 B.C. and 1069 B.C.) and the First Intermediate Period that spanned more than a century after the collapse of the Old Kingdom, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Egyptian
archeologists started excavating the site in September. The tombs, he said, were for senior officials including regional rulers and supervisors of the palace in ancient Egypt.
“All of those five tombs are well-painted, well-decorated. Excavations did not stop. We are planning to continue our excavations. We believe that we can find more tombs in this area,” he told reporters at the site.
The tombs were found near the Step Pyramid of Djoser, in the Saqqara Necropolis, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Cairo.
Footage shared on the ministry’s social media pages showed burial shafts leading to the tombs. Walls were seen decorated with
hieroglyphic inscriptions and images of sacred animals and after-life items used by ancient Egyptians.
The Saqqara site is part of a a sprawling necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis that includes the famed
Giza Pyramids as well as smaller
pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a
UNESCO
World Heritage site in 1970s.
In recent years, Egypt has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats in the hope of attracting more tourists to the country.
The vital tourism sector, a major source of foreign currency for
Egypt, suffered from years of political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The sector has recently started to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, but was hit again by the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Along with Russia, Ukraine is a major source of tourists visiting the Middle Eastern nation.
INDEPENDENT 2 JANUARY 2023 - LOOTED ANCIENT SARCOPHAGUS RETURNED TO EGYPT FROM US
Egyptian officials say an ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences has been returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago.
An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday.
The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world.
Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the
sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from 664 B.C. until
Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C.
The sarcophagus, almost 3 meters (9.5 feet) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named
Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.
It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel
Rubinstein, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Egypt.
The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.
“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg said at the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”
Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about $4 million. It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
Guardians
of the archaeological wonders of Ancient Egypt. Renewables
could play a big part in generating zero emission tours,
hence, climate friendly tourism, to bolster income, which in
turn might be used to further the protections of
antiquities, that nobody wants to see looted, rather stolen
items returned to Egypt, as part of the encapsulation of the
Land of the Pharaohs.
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As
they say, the sands of time almost swallowed Ancient Egypt, as the
ocean has swallowed umpteen civilizations, just in the past 10,000
years. We may never discover other lost towns and cities, such
as to understand our past, or even explore those we know of,
unless the secrets of the ocean are shared.
Ocean awareness,
or literacy is not presently high on
academic agendas. It is a shocking statistic that we know
more about Outer Space, than we do our underwater kingdom.
Televised documentary programmes have done a great deal to
make life under the waves more popular, highlighting the
marine litter problem that is of major concern to marine
biologists. With plastic now seen in the remotest corners of
the globe and deepest trenches of the
ocean.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/mostafa-waziri-sarcophagus-egypt-b2254835.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/cairo-ap-egypt-mostafa-waziri-hosni-mubarak-b2039575.html
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