Last week I met Dr. Zahi Hawas and he gave a lecture about Saqqara and the new excavations there. The following information was delivered by Dr. Hawas:
"At the end of 2008,1 announced to the public that we had discovered a new pyramid at Saqqara. People around the world were thrilled by the news, 1 believe that this was the most exciting and important archaeological discovery of last year and the one nearest to my heart. On January 6, 2009, we entered the burial chamber of the pyramid for the first time. It was a great challenge to gain access to the interior of the monument, and we spent over a month trying to find a way to remove the huge granite slabs that blocked the main entrance. We eventually discovered that in antiquity, tomb robbers had met with the same difficulties that we were facing, and had solved the problem by opening a shaft through the center of the pyramid and entering from above. We used this same shaft to reach the burial chamber, where we found a huge granite sarcophagus.
In preparation for opening the sarcophagus itself, I asked my assistant Abdel-Ha-kim Karara to bring Reis Ahmed EI-Krity, who along with his brother Talal was trained by their father in the art of moving the heavy stone lids that sealed eminent Egyptian sarcophagi. Their method was the same as the one used by the Ancient Egyptians. 1 still remember when Ahmed and Talal came to Bahariyya Oasis to help me lift the 22-ton lid of the sarcophagus belonging to a governor of Bahariyya, The five hours that it took us to complete this work were perhaps the most exciting five hours of my life.
Inside the burial chamber of the new pyramid at Saqqara, Reis Ahmed and I carefully planned the opening of the sarcophagus. As we worked. I could not speak to anyone because I was concentrating so closely on the task of lifting the six-ton lid. I was concerned for the safety of the workmen, and I was also very excited to see what might be inside. The team brought in wooden sledges, along with two machines known as afrieta in Arabic. Afrieta literally means "genie," and the machines - simple, hand-powered winches that use a hydraulic mechanism to raise heavy loads - are so-called because they seem to work almost as if by magic. We know that machines like this have been in use for centuries, and I believe that they could have been known to the Ancient Egyptians. The workmen placed large, wooden beams behind the sarcophagus, and use the afrieta machines to push the lid to the side. They placed it on the sledges, and I was able to peer inside.
The tomb robbers had taken the most precious artefacts, such as jewellery that had been buried with the mummy. The skeletal remains of the deceased were still there, however, and we have been able to determine that they belonged to a woman, the queen for whom the pyramid had been built. She was buried in a wooden coffin placed inside the sarcophagus, and we found fragments of this coffin along with shards of pottery. Most of the pottery dated to the Old Kingdom, although a few pieces were dated to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (ca. 500 BC) era. In addition, we found pieces of gold that had once covered the fingers of the queen's mummy.
People often ask me how I feel when I open an intact tomb shaft, raise the lid of a sarcophagus for the first time or hold a statue in my hand that no one has touched for thousands of years. I cannot explain what such moments are like, and I always say that this is something you must experience yourself to feel the passion of the adventure of archaeology. When I was young, I lived in a village called Abeedya, near the city of Damietta in the Nile Delta. I was afraid of the dark. I never went out alone, and if mv father sent me anywhere after nightfall, I had to take my younger brother Mohammed with me.
After we opened the sarcophagus in the new pyramid, I went to visit the Step Pyramid, also at Saqqara , where a new tunnel had been found. It is hard to believe how many tunnels and corridors there are below the Step Pyramid - computer models tell us that their overall length is more than five and a half kilometers! I cleared the newly discovered tunnel and crawled on my chest for about 10 meters, until I found myself under the sarcophagus in the burial chamber of Djoser. It was very dark, and I was scared, but the thrill of the adventure made me forget the terror that I had felt as a child in such places.
The new pyramid at Saqqara is located near that of King Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. I have been excavating in the area since 1986, the year after I finished my PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. I decided to work there because I wanted to explore the mysteries surrounding this king who ruled for 30 years. Manetho, the Egyptian priest who recorded the history of the Pharaonic period and divided it into 31 dynasties, wrote that Teli fell victim to a conspiracy and was assassinated.
The French archaeologist Victor Loret discovered the pyramids of two of the pharaoh's queens, Iput I and Khuit, at the end of the nineteenth century. British Egyptologists Cecil Firth and Bettiscombe Gunn excavated the pyramid of Iput I in the 1920s, The tomb of Khuit was investigated by Vita Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi, but they were unable to determine whether It had originally been a mastaba (a flat roofed, rectangular building) or a pyramid.
I rediscovered Khuil's pyramid, and studied the architecture of both of her monuments and that of Iput I. I was able to determine that Khuit's pyramid was built first. Iput I's tomb moreover was originally built as a mastaba and only later turned into a pyramid. This evidence indicates that, contrary to what Egyptologists once thought, Khuit was actually Teti's main wife, while Iput I was a secondary queen.
In addition to learning new information about the pyramids of Teti's wives, we found the tomb of his son, Prince Tetiankhkem, whose name means "Te-tiankh the Black." The tomb was beautifully decorated with scenes of daily life and inscribed with titles indicating that the owner was second in importance only to the king. We located the burial chamber, which is about 10 meters deep, and inside we found a limestone sarcophagus containing the mummy of the prince. We also discovered artifacts including a headrest and stone vessels.Studying Tetiankhkem's skull, we found evidence that he may have been murdered, lending support to Manetho's story of a conspiracy against the prince's father. We can now reconstruct the events at the end of Teti's reign.
I believe lhat Tetiankhkem was the son of Teli and Khuit, and that both the king and the prince were killed by their enemies. After they were assassinated, a minor king called Userkare took the throne for a few years. After Userkare, Pepi I, the son of the secondary queen Iput I, then became pharaoh, and changed his mother's mastaha tomb into a pyramid in recognition of the status she had acquired as the mother of a king. In this role, she became the goddess Isis or Hathor, the mother of the monarch who ruled the country as the king of Upper and Lower Egypt.
After the amazing things that I was able to find in my excavations around the pyramid of Teti. I did not expect to make another major discovery. Nearby however, there was a hill of sand about 20 meters high, I asked my assistant Abdel Hakim to have this sand removed, and we were surprised to find the remains of a small pyramid underneath! This pyramid, the one whose discovery I announced at the end of 2008, has a square base and a superstructure about five meters high. On the east side, a part of the fine limestone casing about a meter in length is still intact. The monument was built as a step pyramid with the sides of the steps sloping upward at an angle of about 52 degrees.
We have not found any indication of the name of the person who was buried here, although we are now sure from the female remains found in the sarcophagus that the pyramid was built for a queen. We know that there were three important women in Teti's life: his two wives, Khuil and Ipul 1, and his mother, Sesheshet. We know about Sesheshet from a papyrus that tells us about a treatment developed for her to improve the condition of her hair. No other tomb has been found bearing her name, so I believe that this pyramid was constructed for her To the west of the newly discovered pyramid, we found mu, d brick buildings used as storerooms for the mortuary complex. Also nearby, we uncovered many New Kingdom burials, including one beautifully decorated tomb furnished with false doors. We also found a number of important artifacts. The evidence that we uncovered during our excavations shows that the Teti cemetery was an important burial ground throughout much of Egypt 's history and was in use during the Roman Period.
I consider myself very lucky to have rediscovered two pyramids and discovered two others over the course of my career. In addition to the pyramid of Khuit, I located a pyramid at Saqqara that was first mentioned by Lepsius in 1842. This pyramid is called the "Headless Pyramid" because only its base remains. Based on the style of the burial chamber and sarcophagus, I believe that it probably belonged to King Menkauhor of the Fifth Dynasty.
The other pyramid that I discovered is the cult pyramid of Khufu, to the east of the Great Pyramid. It has a T-shaped substructure, and we believe that the king used it as a ceremonial changing room, where he would leave his crown and robe and don his kilt and flail in the jubilee celebration that marked his accomplishment of ail of the tasks that the gods had appointed him to carry out.
The discovery of a pyramid is truly exciting and confirms what I always say - namely, that as of today, we hare discovered only 30 percent of Egypt 's monuments. The remaining 70 percent are still buried beneath the sand. "
Hossam Rashwan for EgyptHoliday.com
