On the eastern slope of the Saqqara plateau, archaeologists have again come across traces linking Egypt's early dynasties with the flourishing of the New Kingdom. A joint Egyptian-Japanese mission led by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Kanazawa University has discovered four tombs and more than ten burials dating to the end of the Second to the beginning of the Third Dynasty and to the Eighteenth Dynasty, respectively.
Two mudbrick mastabas and two rock-cut tombs belong to the turn of the third millennium BC. One of them is located at the edge of the northern part of the plateau and is equipped with a fortified limestone entrance to the burial chamber. Nearby were found an alabaster dish, a cylindrical vessel and a limestone seal — objects that, it appears, accompanied the funerary rite of those distant times.
In the same season, the mission cleared and partially restored a Greco-Roman catacomb discovered in previous years. During the work, mummified human remains, terracotta models of funerary chapels, fragments of depictions of Isis and Aphrodite, pieces of wooden sarcophagi and pottery came to light. These finds add to the picture of the necropolis's centuries-long use.
According to Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the discovery indicates that the Saqqara cemetery extended farther north than previously thought. The Eighteenth Dynasty burials confirm that, after the expulsion of the Hyksos and the return of Memphis to the status of capital, Saqqara again became a resting place for the elite of the New Kingdom.
Nozomu Kawai, head of the Japanese part of the expedition, noted that the work will continue in the next season. The scholars hope to extract more information from sections not yet opened. Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Sherif Fathy emphasized the contribution of joint missions to uncovering the history of Egyptian civilization.
Saqqara, where the first step pyramid of Djoser stands, has for three thousand years served as a mirror reflecting the shifts of eras, beliefs and social structures. Each new burial adds a stroke to the portrait of a society in which preparation for the afterlife was not an abstract idea but an everyday concern.
Each new discovery at Saqqara reminds us that a careful study of the layers of the past helps us better understand how people of different eras sought meaning in the finitude of life.
