Italian Archaeologists Discover Graeco-Roman Rock-Cut Tomb in Aswan

Khloud Hosny April 23, 2019

The Egyptian-Italian archaeological mission working at the Aga Khan Mausoleum area, on Aswan West Bank, discovered a rock-cut tomb of a person named Tjt, that dated back to the Late Pharaonic to the Graeco-Roman Period.

Dr. Mostafa Waziri General Secretary of the Supreme council of Antiquities announced Today.

He explains that inside the tomb the mission found parts of a painted wooden coffin, and fragments of another presenting a complete text including the name of the owner and invocation to the gods of the First Cataract Khnum, Satet and Anuket, as well as Hapy, the Nile-god.

Dr. Ayman Ashmawy head of the Egyptian ancient sector said that the tomb consist of a stair partly flanked by sculpted blocks leading to the funerary chambers. The entrance was closed by a stone wall found in the original place that had been erected over the stair.

On her part Dr. Patrizia Piacentini Head of the mission said that the mission found also many amphorae and offering vases, funerary structure inside it 4 mummies were deposed accompanied by vessels still containing food. As well as Two mummies superimposed, probably of a mother and her child, were still covered by painted cartonnage. A round-topped coffin was excavated directly in the rock floor. In the main room lied around 30 mummies, among which some of young children who were deposited in a long lateral niche.

She pointed out that leaning against the north wall of the room, an amazing intact stretcher made with palm wood and linen strips, used by the people who deposited the mummies in the tomb, has been discovered. At the entrance of the room, vessels containing bitumen for mummification, white cartonnage ready to be painted and a lamp have been discovered. On the right and left sides of the door, many beautiful colored and gilded cartonnages, fragments of funerary masks painted with gold and a well preserved statuette of the Ba-bird, representing the soul of the deceased, still presenting all the details of the decoration have been found.
She continue that the mission has mapped around 300 tombs dating back from the 6th Century BC to the 4th Century AD, located in the area surrounding the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, on the Aswan West Bank. The Egyptian archaeologists had already excavated 25 tombs in the area from 2015 to 2018.