New Egypt finds show Sakkara necropolis lasted longer, Memphis remained de facto capital
SAKKARA, Egypt -- Egypt's chief archaeologist displayed on Tuesday the latest discoveries from the Sakkara cemetery south of Cairo and said many more treasures clearly lay hidden beneath the sands.
The new finds, outlined in statements over the past week, also show that Sakkara remained a necropolis, from the Greek "City of the Dead", for Egypt's elite long after the Old Kingdom period for which it is famous, said Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Antiquities Council.
The finds include the tomb of a royal cupbearer from the time of the "rebel" pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in favor of the Aten sun disk and brought in a new and more expressive style of art.
Akhenaten ruled between 1379 and 1362 BC, just before the famous boy king Tutankhamun...
Maarten Raven, the field director of the Dutch mission which has excavated the tomb over the past two months, said he expected more tombs from the period to turn up in Sakkara, which is most famous for pyramids and tombs from 1,000 years earlier.
The nearby city of Memphis remained the de facto capital of Egypt for most of pharaonic history, even when the official capital was at Luxor in the south or in the new city which Akhenaten built at Tell el-Amarna in central Egypt.
"It was business as usual and Memphis still functioned as the capital, so there were courtiers and high officials and they must have had their burials, so I'm sure there is a lot more to be found in this area," Raven said.
"We thought all the tombs of the period were in Amarna but Akhenaten built temples in Sakkara ... and this shows that the officials who ruled the north were buried here," said Hawass.
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The new finds, outlined in statements over the past week, also show that Sakkara remained a necropolis, from the Greek "City of the Dead", for Egypt's elite long after the Old Kingdom period for which it is famous, said Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Antiquities Council.
The finds include the tomb of a royal cupbearer from the time of the "rebel" pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in favor of the Aten sun disk and brought in a new and more expressive style of art.
Akhenaten ruled between 1379 and 1362 BC, just before the famous boy king Tutankhamun...
Maarten Raven, the field director of the Dutch mission which has excavated the tomb over the past two months, said he expected more tombs from the period to turn up in Sakkara, which is most famous for pyramids and tombs from 1,000 years earlier.
The nearby city of Memphis remained the de facto capital of Egypt for most of pharaonic history, even when the official capital was at Luxor in the south or in the new city which Akhenaten built at Tell el-Amarna in central Egypt.
"It was business as usual and Memphis still functioned as the capital, so there were courtiers and high officials and they must have had their burials, so I'm sure there is a lot more to be found in this area," Raven said.
"We thought all the tombs of the period were in Amarna but Akhenaten built temples in Sakkara ... and this shows that the officials who ruled the north were buried here," said Hawass.