These untouched treasures in the 3,000-year-old Lost City in Egypt
Archaeologists have lifted the veil on the treasures they have already found in a newly discovered 3,000-year-old city in Egypt. It is said to be the largest city from ancient Egypt that has ever been found.
Although only part of the site has been excavated, an unprecedented wealth of items has already been excavated.
These include the remains of people and animals, clothes, sandals, beautifully colored old pots, statues, jewelery and amulets.
They were in the remains of buildings, including a workshop where meat was dried and a few shops. The more notable finds included the fossil remains of a fish, covered in gold, which may have been worshiped.
Work began in September between the temples of Ramesses III and Amenhotep III, near Luxor, some 500 kilometers south of Cairo. According to the well-known Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, the city was linked to the sun god Aton and Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
Witness to this are stones with the seal of the latter. “We have uncovered three large districts,” said the French news agency AFP. “One for the administration, one for workers, and one for the business community.”
Tombs
Only part of the city has been excavated. It would stretch even farther north and west. The archaeologists are confident that more treasures will surface. They referred to the discovery of a number of tombs, which can be reached by a staircase carved into the rock. A construction was reminiscent of the Valley of the Kings, where some of the most famous pharaohs in history are buried.
Amenhotep III – with which the city is connected – inherited an empire that stretched from the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq and Syria to Sudan, under Egypt. He reigned for nearly four decades, dying in 1354 BC. The period is best known for its opulence and the grandeur of its monuments.
According to American archaeologist and Egyptian art connoisseur Betsy Bryan of Johns Hopkins University, the archaeological find is the most important since Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb nearly a century ago. “The archaeological layers have remained untouched for thousands of years. They look like the residents of the staff just left them yesterday,” she responds.
