ANCIENT EGYPT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22025, 7 August 1933, Page 5

ANCIENT EGYPT

RELICS OF NUBIAN TRIBES The Egyptian Department of Antiquities has issued accounts of two important pieces of excavation carried out iu Egypt this season. , .... The first concerns discoveries in the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara by Mr J. E. Quibcll and Mr J. P. Lauer, which show that this already much-explored monument is still capable of producing surprises. The Step-Pyramid has always been recognised as the tomb of King Zoser of the Third Dynasty, but it now proves, contrary to, the usual practice m large pyramids, to have contained other tombs, apparently of members of his family. One of these tombs yielded a coffin made of sixply cedar ■wood. Hie thin layers of wood are carefully pegged together and overlaid with thick gold plate fastened with hundreds of tiny gold nails. This tomb is apparently that of Zoser’s daughter and was discovered, with traces of others, in a gallery about lOOtt below earth level after laborious excavation. , , „ ~ The second account reports further discoveries made by Mr W. B. Emery and Mr L. Kir wan, two young archaeologists employed in an archmologieal survey of Nubia, in a burial ground near the Abu Simbol-Sndan border. This cemetery ot an unknown Nubian tribe dwelling on the frontier of the Roman Empire about the third century A.i)., yielded last year a remarkable collection of objects now exhibited in the Cairo Museum. This year s discoveries were equally spectacular. Four royal tombs were found intact, containing the bodies of kings surrounded by slaughtered slaves and dogs, and in two cases with the bodies of queers buried with them. The kings and queens were wearing enormous silver crowns encrusted with gems and ornamented with stamped figures borrowed from Egyptian mythology. Beside the kings’ biers was a magnifient collection of silver-mounted spears and swords in silver scabbards. The grave furniture includes iron folding stools, tables, bronze lamps and incense burners, also a complete set of metal workers’ tools, including scales and weights for weighing precious metals. Most of these objects are apparently the work of Greco-Byzantme crattsmen.