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Archaeologists unearth 5 centuries-old Pharaonic tombs in Egypt. See video

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Archaeologists have discovered 5 finely decorated, well-preserved paintings at a cemetery in Saqqara, just outside the Egyptian capital Cairo, officials said on Saturday.

The five tombs, unearthed earlier this month, date back to the Old Kingdom (1570 B.C. and 1069 B.C.) and the First Intermediate Period that spanned more than a century after the collapse of the old kingdom, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

 

https://twitter.com/TourismandAntiq/status/1505489341698686979?s=20&t=rQOBG8hzO_4Cuc0yan-Rrg

Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Egyptian archaeologists started excavation on the site in September.

The tombs, he said, were for senior officials including regional rulers and supervisors of the palace in ancient Egypt.

“All of those five tombs are well-painted, well-decorated. Excavations did not stop. We are planning to continue our excavations. We believe that we can find more tombs in this area,” he told reporters.

The tombs were found near the Step Pyramid of Djoser, in the Saqqara necropolis, 24 kilometres (15 miles) southwest of Cairo.

Footage, shared on the ministry’s social media pages, showed burial shafts leading to the tombs. Walls were seen decorated with hieroglyphic inscriptions, images of sacred animals and after-life items used by ancient Egyptians.

 

https://twitter.com/TourismandAntiq/status/1505489155689750532?s=20&t=rQOBG8hzO_4Cuc0yan-Rrg

The Saqqara site is part of a sprawling necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis that includes the famed Giza pyramids as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s.

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Kenyan govt to convert ‘evil cult’ forest into a memorial site

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The Kenyan government says it plans to convert the Shakahola Forest, where bodies of over 250 members of a Christian cult led by Pastor Paul Mackenzie were exhumed, into a national memorial.

The eastern African country was thrown into a frenzy in April when some followers of the pastor reportedly died after he instructed them to starve to death so they could meet with Jesus.

Kenya’s Interior Minister, Kithure Kindiki, who disclosed the intentions of the government at a press conference on Tuesday, said once the recovery of the bodies buried in the 800-acre forest was complete, the forest would be “turned into a place of remembrance so that people won’t forget what happened there.”

The minister added that the government had enough evidence to prosecute the leader of the cult and the main suspect, Pastor Mackenzie, on charges of genocide after he allegedly convinced his followers to fast to death in order to go to heaven.

“Most of the victims, including children, died of starvation but some were strangled, beaten, or suffocated,” Kindiki said, quoting autopsy reports.

Kindiki said investigations had shown that the cult’s activities extended beyond the Shakahola Forest, adding that investigations had extended to the larger 37,000-acre Chakama ranch in the area.

“Security roads are being constructed to provide access to the expansive area as search and rescue operations and investigations continues,” he said.

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Scientists discover world’s oldest burial site in South Africa

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Scientists in South Africa say they have discovered the oldest-known burial site in the world “containing remains of a small-brained distant relative of humans previously thought incapable of complex behaviour,” world-renowned palaeoanthropologist, Lee Berger, who led the team of researchers, said on Monday.

The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation, and published in the journal, eLife.

It challenges the understanding of human evolution which is normally held that the development of bigger brains allowed for the performing of complex functions.

Berger said the research team uncovered evidence that “members of a mysterious archaic human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls long before the earliest evidence of burials by modern humans.”

“The brains belonging to the extinct species, known as Homo naledi, were around one-third the size of a modern human brain,” he said in a statement while announcing the result of the discovery.

“These revelations could change the understanding of human evolution, because until now, such behaviors only have been associated with larger-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals,” he added.

According to the palaeoanthropologist, the team discovered several specimens of Homo naledi, a tree-climbing, Stone Age hominid, buried about 30 metres (100 feet) underground in a cave system within the Cradle of Humankind located in Johannesburg, which has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“These are the most ancient interments yet recorded in the hominin record, earlier than evidence of Homo sapiens interments by at least 100,000 years,” Berger wrote.

Before the discovery, the oldest burials previously unearthed were found in the Middle East which contained the remains of Homo sapiens and were around 100,000 years old.

But the South African find reportedly dates back to at least 200,000 BC.

“These discoveries show that mortuary practices were not limited to H. sapiens or other hominins with large brain sizes,” Berger said.

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