ANCIENT TOMBS

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1933, Page 5

ANCIENT TOMBS

DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT RELICS OF NUBIAN TRIBES. BODIES OF KINGS AND QUEENS. The Egyptian Department of Antiquities has issued accounts of two important pieces of excavation carried out in Egypt this season. The first concerns discoveries in the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara by Mr. J. E. Qui'beil 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 in large pyramids, to have contained other tombs, apparently of members of his family. One of these tombs yielded a coffin made of six-ply cedar wood. The 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 100 ft. below earth level after laborious excavation. The ■ second account reports further discoveries, made by Mr. W. B. Emery and Mr. L. Kirwan, two young archaeologists employed in an archaeological survey of Nubia, in a burial ground near the Abu Simbel-Sudan border. This cemetery of an unknown Nubian tribe dwelling on the frontier of the Boman Empire about the third century A.D., 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 l kings surrounded by slaughtered slaves and dogs, and in two cases ' with the bodies of queens 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 magnificent collection of silvermounted spears and swords in .silver., scabbards.

The grave furniture includes iron folding stools, tables, bronze lamps and incense' burners, also a complete set of metalworkers’ tools, including scales and weights for weighing precious metals. Most of these objects are apparently the work of Greco-Byzantine craftsmen.