Egypt: Archaeologists discover ‘mystery woman’
Ancient Egypt has provided the world with a wealth of knowledge since archaeologists began digging up
The fertile Nile Delta region is home to a range or civilisations which have all risen and fallen one after the other, their lives spanning thousands of years.
Perhaps best-known is the period in which so-called great pharaohs ruled over Egypt, including figures like Djoser, Khufu, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramses II.
By the end of the 1800s, most of the tombs of the greats scattered across the Valley of the Kings has been discovered, both excavated or looted.
Yet, there remains a string of intact tombs that are found even today.
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In 2020, a fresh find was made in Dahshur, a royal necropolis located in the desert on the West Bank of the Nile, some 40 kilometres from Cairo.
Many artefacts and relics were found buried inside a coffin, a place of rest first believed to belong to an ancient king due to the fact it was placed inside a pyramid — such burials were reserved for Egypt’s rulers.
The discovery was explored during the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary ‘Mystery of the Lost Pyramid’.
A team working under Egyptologist Dr Yasmin El Shazly pieced together fragments of wood that were found in the burial chamber, eventually forming a coffin lid with a carved face.
“Coffins normally had features similar to the owner,” said Dr Shazly.
“But they were idealised, because that’s what they would look like for eternity.”
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While researchers went into the work with the belief that it was a king, as the restoration came together, the presumption was soon proved to be false.
As the documentary’s narrator noted: “The restoration has revealed something astonishing: this isn’t a king: It is, in fact, a mystery woman.”
The coffin lid showed a person wearing a Hathor wig, an item of clothing popular with women during the Middle Kingdom era, Dr Shazly explained.
The woman was found buried alongside a chest which was covered in hieroglyphs that researchers hoped would help them decipher her identity. However, the place where her name should have been was severely damaged.
“What’s extremely important about this chest is that we know that it belonged to a princess because here it says: ‘Daughter of the King,'” said Dr Shazly.
Not only was her name a mystery but also the reason why she had ever been buried in a pyramid.
Professor Aidan Dodson from the University of Bristol said: “This kind of pyramid design is specific to a king. It’s not what you’d expect a junior member of the royal family to be in.
“Normally a princess would simply have a shaft tomb and a chamber at the bottom of it, which makes the whole thing a real mystery.”
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