More ancient discoveries in Egypt's Dakahliya

More funerary objects are unearthed inside a mastaba tomb uncovered last week in Dakahliya

by Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 9 Feb 2014

During excavation work carried out Sunday inside a mastaba tomb found in Tel El-Tabila in Dakahliya, a collection of three skeletons, a large collection of ushabti figurines and two tombs were uncovered.

Mohamed Ibrahim, minister of state for antiquities, said in a press release that the three skeletons can be dated to the Late Ancient Egyptian period. A collection of 14 amulets were found buried beside one of them. The most important amulet is one depicting the Triod gods of Amun, Horus and Neftis.

Beside the second skeleton, Ibrahim said, a collection of 29 amulets was found, among them a heart shaped scarab and garnet amulets.

Beside the third skeleton excavators uncovered 12 amulets featuring the Udjat eye of Horus.

Ali El-Asfar, head of the Ancient Egyptian Section at the Ministry of State for Antiquities told Ahram Online that the Egyptian excavation mission uncovered two anthropoid limestone coffins with a mummy inside.

Inside the first coffin the mummy is covered with gilded carttonage and decorated with hieroglyphic text and the cartouche of King Psamtik I from the 26th Dynasty.

The mummy is in a bad state of preservation due to high levels of humidity.

Museum Pieces - Shabti of Akhenaten

Almost nothing remains of the burial equipment of Akhenaten. However, many Shabtis near his tomb were found. The Shabti shows Akhenaten, who can be identified by its characteristic features. Inscriptions were probably on the lower part of the Shabti, now missing. The King is wearing the nemes headscarf with Uraeus and the King beard. 

Shabtis were intended to perform work that the deceased was called upon to do in the afterlife. More than two hundred shabti fragments inscribed for Akhenaten are known, and their existence suggests that belief in the afterlife and certain aspects of traditional funerary practices survived during the Amarna period. However, Akhenaten's shabtis are inscribed only with the king's names and titles, not the standard shabti text.

Quartzite, fine-grained, white

H 12.78 cm, W 8.1 cm, D 5.7 cm 

Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Egyptian - Oriental Collection

Inv AE_INV_10166

Sources: http://www.khm.at/en/visit/collections/egyptian-and-near-eastern-collection/selected-masterpieces/?cHash=dfb045333efd096a1ea1afd262c4a608

http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=316945