Egypt’s minister of antiquities, Khaled al-Anany, announced on January 30, 2020, that an archaeological team had discovered sixteen tombs containing twenty sarcophagi south of the capital Cairo. The tombs date back to 664–399 BC. It seems some of the tombs belonged to high priests and senior officials. There are hieroglyphs and carvings honoring Egyptian gods such as Thot, Isis, and Osiris. An exceptionally detailed sarcophagus was dedicated to the ancient god Horus. The archaeologists also discovered about 10,000 green and blue earthenware figurines, and 700 scarab-shaped amulets, some made of pure gold.
This successful dig is the latest in a series of discoveries that have been organized by the Egyptian government as part of an effort to boost the country’s tourism industry, which has declined in the wake of violent clashes with protesters and terrorist attacks from the Sinai Peninsula.