Archaeologists have uncovered a 5 000-year-old chamber believed to have been used for the burial rituals of Egypt’s first major pharaoh and found a cache of 200 rough ceramic beer and wine jars, Egyptian authorities said on Thursday.
The mortuary enclosure of King Hur-Aha, the founder of Egypt’s First Dynasty, also included a cultic chapel where the floor and benches are stained with organic material — probably the remains of offerings made during rituals, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said.
”It is a very important discovery because it would provide us with new information about the First Dynasty,” said Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The mud-brick mortuary enclosure was discovered by a joint American excavation from Yale University, the Pennsylvania University Museum and New York University at Shunet El-Zebib, part of the pharaonic holy city of Abydos, where many of Egypt’s earlier pharaohs are buried, 400km south of Cairo.
The enclosure is believed to be where the body of King Hur-Aha was kept during burial rituals. His tomb is nearby in Abydos, though it is not known whether he was buried there.
The enclosure also included three rectangular tombs with wooden ceilings covered with reed matting — one with a well-preserved skeleton of a woman, and another tomb with remains of human bones.
Hawass said experts are trying to identify the remains. The enclosure also had a chamber of pots with hieroglyphs indicating they were made during the reign of Hur-Aha.
Hur-Aha, who ruled about 3100 BC — about 500 years before the pyramids were built — is considered the first pharaoh of the First Dynasty, the first royal family to control both Upper and Lower Egypt in a unified kingdom. But little is known of the era.
Later Egyptian dynasties came to identify Abydos as the burial site of the god Osiris.
The beer and wine jars were found in excavations along the walls of the mortuary enclosure of King Khasekhemwy, a Second Dynasty pharaoh who ruled about 2700 BC. — Sapa-AP