A terrifying site dubbed “City of the Dead” with more than 300 mummy tombs has been discovered in the ancient city of Aswan, Egypt.
The ancient archaeological site, named by the research team working on its excavation, contains 36 tombs. Each has 30 to 40 mummies.
The huge burial site covers an area of nearly 270,000 feet, with the city housing it being an important trade, quarry, and military region established more than 4,500 years ago. Until now, information about its citizens and the lives they lived has remained largely a mystery.
What's the race of these people??? ‘City of the Dead’ archeologists have now uncovered more than 300 tombs packed with mummies #Egypt #Archaeologyhttps://t.co/uHhbvE2ypC
— Dr Know (@DrKnowfifth) July 1, 2024
A great number of the tombs, which are thought to have been reused for roughly 900 years, are packed with families who archaeologists believe died of infectious diseases.
The site houses up to 10 terraces of tombs, arranged in layers near the modern Mausoleum of Aga Khan III. He was the former president of the Assembly of the League of Nations. His remains have been housed at the site since 1959.
“This was a really spectacular find, very unique in Egypt,” Patrizia Piacentini, an archaeologist at the University of Milan who is part of the team who made the mind-blowing discovery, told Daily Mail Online.
Piacentini said that people of Aswan had once “covered the hill with tombs. It is kind of a City of the Dead.”
Layout of the tombs in ancient Egypt
The excavation work also uncovered the fact that elites were buried on top of the hill in this city of ancient Egypt. Experts found the mummified remains of the general in chief of Aswan. The remains of middle class individuals were placed in tombs underneath those of the elite.
The burial site dates from between the 6th century BC and 9th century AD. A few of the tombs have a casket entrance with an open courtyard flanked by walls of milk brick. Others are simply carved into mountain rock.
Ayman Ashmawy, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ Egyptian Antiquities Division, said studies suggested 30 to 40 percent of those buried died quite young as “newborns or as adolescents,” according to DailyMail.com.
A woman and one-year-old child were uncovered among the mummies, as well, with their bodies apparently glued to each other inside a stone coffin. Some remains were wrapped in cartonnage, a paper mache material.
Studies of the remains showed “some suffered from infectious diseases, while others had bone disorders,” Piacentini told Daily Mail Online. It was added that some of the children are believed to have suffered from anemia and malnutrition.
The ancient city of Aswan can be found on the east bank of the Nile River. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Additionally, it was home to quarries that supplied granite for several ancient Egyptian monuments and served as a military post for the Romans, Turks, and British.
The first tomb on the site was uncovered in 2019, and it housed four mummies, including two children.
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