What remains to be discovered of the great necropolises of Egypt and the approaches to the pyramids? The monumental tombs of the first kings of the Nile auscultated by generations of seasoned archaeologists seem to have been drained of almost all their secrets. However, around these funerary colossi, the expanses of sand still contain unsuspected wonders. The successive archaeological missions carried out by the University of Cairo in Saqqara, about twenty kilometers from the Egyptian capital, make it possible to be sure of this, campaign after campaign. Back on the site in January, the researchers continue to unearth an aristocratic ensemble from the ancient necropolis, dating from the New Kingdom. Almost a millennium after the beautiful step pyramid of King Djoser.
Read alsoGolden masks, lost cities, protohistoric map... The most remarkable discoveries of 2021
"Associated with
Memphis
, Saqqara was a royal necropolis at the time of the first dynasties, under the Old Empire
" , recalls for
Le Figaro
the director of excavation Ola El Aguizy (University of Cairo).
However, it continued to be used as a funerary site long after this first era marked by the construction of the
pyramids of Djoser
and Ounas.
With a team of around thirty workers, the emeritus Egyptologist resumed in 2005 the excavations carried out for forty years in Saqqara by the University of Cairo. At the beginning of the year, it continues the excavation of the tomb of Iwlkhy (also written Eurkhi, or Ourkhya, according to the transcriptions) a general-in-chief of Seti I then of Ramses II (1279-1212 BC). ).
“The tomb is of considerable size, several generations of the same family rub shoulders there
,
”
underlines Ola El Aguizy. During a previous campaign, the researcher descended, using a rope, eight meters below the surface of the site in order to inspect a then unexplored part of the structure.A sequence filmed for the documentary series
The Lost Treasures of the Valley of the Kings
, airing throughout January on National Geographic.
General view of a tomb-temple.
In the center, a false door gave access to the sprawling underground part of the funerary complex.
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Burial profusion
No marvelous treasure, no lush mummy, however, rested in this aristocratic underground complex gradually unearthed since 2018, some 500 meters south of the step pyramid of Djoser.
The mute galleries of the ancient tomb yielded to researchers various fragments of alabaster and ceramic tableware, a few human remains, and a piece of canopic jar.
Ancient looters did their work a long time ago.
These few wrecks of funerary furniture are nevertheless enough to testify to the richness of this vast collective burial, where the extended family of Iwlkhy and his heirs were piled up.
Read alsoDiscovered at the bottom of a tomb in Saqqara, a mummy too well embalmed for its time
Such clutter is common to Saqqara, as the scientist explains:
"Inside certain funerary shafts already excavated, occupation and re-use are observed for almost a millennium, for example from the 19th to the 30th dynasty
( respectively dated to the 13th and 4th centuries BC, Editor's note)
. The accumulation is such that some wells – up to 30 meters for the most abyssal – have to alternate the orientation of the sarcophagus chambers in order to lighten the weight of this pile!”
A sprawling promiscuity to be compared with the deep solitude of the occupants of pyramids.
The sector which extends in the south of the Egyptian necropolis of Saqqara shelters a large number of mortuary complexes intended for the aristocracy of the New Kingdom. An era of which the Pharaohs Seti I and Ramses II are contemporaries. As well as Tutankhamun, even if the young king left less traces on the site. Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
The ancient general Iwlkhy was thus far, very far from being the only high dignitary to rest among the dead of Saqqara, near the first kings of Egypt. His most august neighbor was Tutankhamun's former strategist, Horemheb. A man of war turned pharaoh. The two warriors rest in a “tomb-temple”, formed of an alignment of peristyle courtyards, like the sanctuaries of the New Kingdom and according to a funerary architectural type specific to Saqqara, assures Ola El Aguizy.
“The polychrome decoration of these tomb-temples, whose elevations are sometimes preserved up to more than a meter high, represents both scenes of daily life and sequences from the Beyond
, indicates the archaeologist .
One section of the wall presents a funeral procession with bearers of offerings, another shows the deceased during his lifetime, with his wife.
All this is represented from east to west, the trajectory of life to death, in the very beautiful style of the 18th-19th dynasties.
Read alsoIn Cairo, the City of the Dead in danger due to a road extension
The last excavation campaign carried out in the southern sector of Saqqara revealed that the surface of the tomb-temple of Iwlkhy had also been devoted to another significant dignitary of the kingdom: Ptah Mwia, grand treasurer of Ramses II. The honorable treasurer could be identified thanks to the excavation of the entrance to the complex, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced last fall. Proof if any discoveries still possible in the vicinity of the pyramids. Despite the ancient and recent predations suffered by the Saqqara mortuary complexes, particularly during the European expeditions of the 19th century, the site thus continues to offer a renewed quantity of thousand-year-old documents with each new excavation season. Sometimes simple fragments of raw brick or limestone coating,sometimes beautiful engraved stelae, adorned with weeping processions or funeral processions. So many vestiges of the world of the dead which come back to life under the vigilant research of Egyptologists.