Ancient scribes' tombs
found
By Sarah El Deeb
The Associated Press
07jun02
SAQQARA, Egypt: Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed six 3500-year-old tombs they
believe reveal important details about the structure of government in a period considered
Egypt's golden age, the country's top archaeologist said.
Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Antiquities, also discussed an exhibit
of Egyptian treasures that will tour the United States beginning June 30 at Washington's
National Gallery of Art and that is bigger than the blockbuster King Tut show of the
1970s.
The exhibit, coming at a time when much of the news Americans hear about the Middle East
concerns terrorism and war, "is telling many people in the States that Egyptians are
peaceful", Hawass said. "They (created) this technology and art and science
because they were looking for peace all the time."
Earlier this week, archaeologists working on a dig Hawass supervises found the six tombs
at the foot of the famous third dynasty Step Pyramid, believed to be Egypt's first
pyramid, just outside Cairo. The tombs belonged to government officials who worked in
northern Egypt at the end of the 18th dynasty and in the 19th dynasty (1567-1200 BC), when
the seat of power was in southern Egypt, not the northern area near Cairo.
One of the tombs was capped with a 37-cm block of limestone carved in the shape of a
pyramid, a characteristic of New Kingdom burials that is unusual in northern Egypt.
Hawass said the discovery is further proof of government decentralisation during the New
Kingdom. "Those buried here were in charge of the Delta," he said.
END OF REPORT
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