Lost cities, secret royals, and the most lavish tombs in history — these
are the discoveries that changed everything we know about Ancient Egypt.
For the dead of ancient Egypt, it wasn't enough to be mummified. You had to be laid to rest in
style. Ideally, this included a respectable tomb and items meant to make their afterlife easier,
such as jewelry, food, and shabti dolls intended to spring to life as servants in the hereafter.
Most Egyptians of means, however, would also have wanted an especially resplendent coffin.
Coffins not only helped to preserve a body but also carried vital symbols
and magical spells meant to streamline the transition into the afterlife. Eventually,
coffins began to depict the deceased as gods themselves. The bigger the funerary budget,
the finer the artwork and the materials used.
By that reasoning, the gigantic stone sarcophagus uncovered by researchers at Saqqara in late 2021
must have belonged to a pretty high-ranking Egyptian. Luckily, his identity wasn't much
of a mystery: excavators could read the carvings all over the piece that indicated it was meant for
Ptah-em-wia, the treasurer of Ramses II. Even more dramatically, the huge artifact was found at the
bottom of a shaft nearly 30 feet deep. To find a sarcophagus in its original spot is exceptionally
unusual, and it could reveal yet more about the inner workings of the court of Ramses the Great.
It seems strange to think of an entire city disappearing, especially for a society that
is so well-known for its use of historical documentation. There certainly had been some
records of the city of Aten, constructed during the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III, in the 14th
century B.C., but it then seemingly vanished into the desert near modern-day Luxor. In an April 2021
statement announcing the rediscovery of the city, Egyptologist and former antiquities official Dr.
Zahi Hawass noted that numerous foreign groups had tried and failed to find it in the past. It was an
Egyptian team that finally traced its location, during an attempt to uncover the mortuary temple
of the pharaoh Tutankhamun. Egyptologist Professor Salima Ikram later told the BBC:
"You expect some Ancient Egyptian to just come around the corner and greet you. It's,
it's really stepping into the past."
Aten wasn't just some backwater town, either. This sprawling settlement was a major population center
that arose during the most prosperous era of the kingdom. Among the finds was what appears to have
been an industrial-level kitchen, a residential area that sported a unique zigzag-shaped wall,
and a production facility for mud bricks, which bore the mark of Amenhotep himself. There are
even tantalizing hints of the transition from polytheism to the monotheistic worship of the
sun disk established by Amenhotep's son and successor, Akhenaten. Further
excavation will hopefully reveal more about this dramatic period of Egyptian history.
The Giza Pyramids are about 4,500 years old, but a civilization doesn't simply spring up
out of nowhere and go about building 500-foot-tall monuments. Many people
lived during the predynastic period of ancient Egypt, generations before the pharaohs. This
era of history saw a few different cultures appear, many of which didn't seem too worried
about the centralization of authority. Perhaps because of their simple structures and largely
unadorned graves, much remains unknown about some of the earliest Egyptians.
Then, in 2020, an Egyptian team announced its discovery of 83 ancient graves,
many of which were about 6,000 years old and date from the Buto period. Buto was an ancient
city in the north of Egypt, traditionally known as "Lower Egypt" given the south-to-north flow
of the Nile River. Other graves are slightly younger, dating to the Naqada III period, which
lasted from about 3200 to 3000 B.C. By the end of this era, Egyptians were likely experiencing
the first rumblings of political organization — eventually leading to the rule of the pharaohs.
Saqqara, a vast and stunning ancient necropolis, has proved to be a rich
site for archaeologists in recent years. It was even a tourist attraction for many generations,
although it was in pretty rough shape by the 19th century. Nevertheless, Egyptologists
have continued making remarkable new finds there, from extravagant tombs to unique animal mummies.
In September 2020, a team started to uncover a group of so-called "megatombs." These burial
places were dominated by gigantic coffins made out of carefully carved and decorated wood.
"A gilded one! I have never seen a gilded face in a great condition like this one."
Eventually, excavators unearthed well over 100 coffins in the largest grouping of
burials ever found in Egypt. Group burials had become common when the kingdom faced
serious political instability. Even though many were buried here during
a resurgence of Egyptian power, by that time, group burials had become the norm.
This idea may even have been linked to the worship of long-dead royals, and being buried
near a well-known Egyptian might have been believed to confer protection on the dead.
It's no secret that many, if not most, of the pharaohs thought pretty highly of themselves.
They lived the good life, dining on fine foods, decking themselves out in rare jewels,
and ordering the construction of huge monuments dedicated to their
legacy. They also frequently proclaimed themselves to be nothing less than gods,
given the weighty task of maintaining cosmic order and managing the regular humans in their realm.
With all that high-flying divine rhetoric threaded through Egyptian history, it's no wonder that
some rulers were worshiped after their death. In 2022, evidence was uncovered that revealed more
information about an especially long-lived cult centered around King Teti, who was buried in a
pyramid in the Saqqara necropolis more than 4,000 years ago. It apparently wasn't an especially
restful tomb, however, as people clamored for 1,000 years to be buried near him after his death.
Evidence of Teti's mortuary cult had been available for years, but the new find has
shed light on the notion that a burial spot near Teti was thought to confer protection
on the deceased — even if they were only a humdrum rich person, and not a semi-immortal god-king.
By 2022, it was already abundantly clear that Saqqara was one of the
hottest spots on Earth — at least as far as Egyptologists were concerned.
"Any Egyptologist must come to Saqqara to learn the history from the beginning to the end."
The ancient necropolis was teeming with burials and grave goods, not to mention active
excavations, and it has hardly been depleted over the years. In May 2022, archaeologists
revealed yet another massive find, this time an estimated 250 elaborately decorated coffins.
As impressive and tantalizing as a mound of unopened sarcophagi may seem on its own, there was
more about this discovery to draw attention from across the globe. The reveal included about 150
statues of different ancient gods, including major figures such as the underworld king Osiris, his
wife Isis, and the goddess of love and sensuality, Hathor. One grave even contained well-preserved
wooden statues of the goddesses Isis and Neftis, posed to mourn the dead individual.
Previously, archaeologists had assumed that the site was primarily dedicated to the goddess Bast,
most often depicted as a cat. However, this new cache of coffins and religious objects
makes it clear that there's a more complex picture of Saqqara waiting to be revealed.
Among the May 2022 trove of coffins excavated at the Saqqara burial complex
was one particularly special find. One of these sarcophagi contained
a powerful and hugely important text known as the Book of the Dead.
The Book of the Dead was a big deal for Egyptians. It's actually a collection of texts by multiple
authors. All forms of the Book of the Dead contain spells and advice for the deceased,
who was expected to make a dangerous journey to the afterworld. Quotes from the Book of the
Dead are so important that they're often found in mummy wrappings, on tomb walls,
and inscribed into coffins. With the help of the spells, the departed would hopefully make
it past a series of challenges and spend their afterlife chilling with the gods.
The man buried with this 13-foot scroll wasn't in possession of the whole text,
but a significant excerpt known today as Chapter 17. This is one
of the longest parts of the book and, strikingly, compares the dead to many
major deities. Given how central the Book of the Dead is to Egyptian belief, a new copy
of any portion can reveal more about how these ancient people thought about life after death.
Many Egyptian royals seemed preoccupied with their legacy. Ramses II certainly
appeared to think he was Ramses the Great during his lifetime,
if his zeal for building monuments full of oversize self-portraits is any indication.
And while Ramses may have been the pharaoh with the most building projects to his name,
he definitely wasn't alone in his self-regard. Across Egypt, countless tombs, statues, obelisks,
temples, palaces, and more sport the names of the rulers who ordered their construction.
So it's all the more strange that some of them still managed to be forgotten,
or at least partially so. Take the semi-mythical Scorpion King, for example. No, not that one.
[screaming]
The Scorpion King was likely a real pharaoh that managed to unite the disparate fiefdoms
of early Egypt, but his actual name still evades us. If even he could be lost to time,
where's the hope for lesser-known royals, such as the queens of Egypt?
But, as a recent discovery made clear, names and identities can resurface. In January 2021,
Egypt's antiquities ministry and Dr. Zahi Hawass announced another round of discoveries at the
Saqqara necropolis. Among the many finds was a mortuary temple dedicated to Queen Nearit,
wife of King Teti. She's also known as Neit. Whatever you call her, though, this queen
is all the more remarkable since, as Hawass admitted, even he had never known she existed.
Tattooing has been around for a very, very long time. For example, Ötzi,
the Alpine "Iceman" mummy who died around 3,300 B.C.,
is the oldest confirmed person to sport tattoos — an impressive 57 of them, in fact.
So tattooing likely wasn't all that shocking to the ancient Egyptians. As a 2022 study published
in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology argued, the practice may have even been
considered essential. Researchers found figurines with tattoo-like markings and
two female mummies with identifiable tattoos in the ancient village of Deir el-Medina.
Tattooed mummies are pretty unusual, as imaging techniques have a hard time
uncovering the markings beneath linen wrappings, and archaeologists now very rarely unwrap mummies.
In the wake of the Deir el-Medina discovery, researchers were able to describe the remains
of two tattooed women: one whose left hip sported an image of Bes, a dwarf-like god,
and another who was marked with the protective Eye of Horus and possibly another depiction of
Bes. The imagery suggests that these tattoos were meant to protect women as they moved
through the perilous time of pregnancy and childbirth. This discovery adds to a
small but growing body of evidence that ancient Egyptians were definitely down with tattooing.
Many ancient Egyptians loved gold. Need proof? Just look at any royal burial
that hasn't already been looted to oblivion. The spectacular 1922 excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb
uncovered a horde of golden artifacts that surely captivated the ancients as much as it does us. Yet
Egyptians of old and modern folks may have a few differences of opinion regarding the use of gold.
In 2021, a Spanish team opened a 2,500-year-old tomb south of Cairo. This discovery was especially
exciting because the tomb was still sealed. Inside was a male mummy in a stone sarcophagus
and hundreds of small shabti figures meant to serve the deceased in the afterlife. Another tomb,
belonging to a woman, had been broken into. Just outside these burial places, archaeologists found
three golden tongues from the Roman occupation of Egypt. Unusual as it may seem to us, the ancients
felt that these artifacts were vital in allowing the dead to communicate with the god Osiris.
Given all of the incantations and other pronouncements necessary to
pass divine muster and make it to paradise,
why not give a dead loved one an advantage? These make up just one part of a group of
similar artifacts that could reveal more about this later period of ancient Egyptian history.