The sarcophagus dates back to 1600 BC
The Egyptian Antiquities Ministry announced Thursday the discovery of a mummy of at least three thousand 600 years ago inside a wooden coffin, which is in very good conditions.
"The discovery was made by Spanish archaeologists in Luxor"
The discovery of the sarcophagus, two meters long and 50 centimeters wide, took place in an old cemetery in the city of Luxor, built on the ruins of Thebes, which was the capital of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, he said the ministry in a statement.
The coffin is almost intact, wood is decorated with drawings of ostrich feathers, the colors are still bright, a type of design that "rarely found in ancient coffins," the Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim.
According to the head of the department of Pharaonic of that ministry, Ali al-Asfar, the sarcophagus dates back to the seventeenth dynasty, around the year 1600 BC, and its owner could have been an important statesman.
Preliminary examination revealed that his sarcophagus hieroglyphic inscriptions refer "the journey to the afterlife" and according to the beliefs of the Pharaohs, the drawings of feathers symbolize the ancient goddess of truth and justice, Maat, Al-Asfar said.
The Tutankhamun Pharathon have died because he was hit by a carriage
In Egyptian mythology, the goddess weighed in the balance the heart of the dead (symbol of his conscience) against a feather (symbol of universal justice) to determine their status in life and after death.
If the balance remained in perfect balance, the deceased could his eternal stay in the past, but if the heart was devoured by Ammyt (represented as a being with a head of a crocodile, the front of a lion and the rear of Hippo) located below the balance.
The discovery was made by Spanish archaeologists in an ancient cemetery on the west bank of Luxor, near a tomb belonging to the store manager of Queen Hatshepsut, during the eighteenth dynasty that ruled from 1502-1482 BC
The same team of archaeologists discovered last year the wooden sarcophagus of a child, five years old, which in the seventeenth dynasty dates back, according to reports in local newspaper Daily News Egypt.
