Many mummies and artifacts discovered by French team in Al-Monira
Egypt-France, Local, 10/14/2004

The French team excavating at Kharga Oasis have made an archaeological discovery 8 kilometers from Al-Monira village.

The team unearthed a Greco- Roman cemetery embracing tombs carved in a sandstone hill.

The tombs which are irregularly clustered mostly comprise a small burial room 1.5 meters high and a burial well from 1 to 2 meters deep.

The facade of the tombs is made of white limestone jambs fixed with mortar.

Inside the tombs, the team found limestone and wooden sarcophagi in addition to a collection of sarcophagi made of sun-dried brick coated with gypsum.

Parts of ornamented funerary beds and mats made of palm fibers were also found.

For the first time, pieces of palm leaf stalk were found tied with a small rope which functioned as a stretcher to trans- port the deceased to the tomb.

The sarcophagi contained skeletons and mummies the hands of some of which were crossed on the chest and others beside their bodies. X-ray scanning showed that some of the bodies suffered diseases.

Preliminary studies revealed that one of the mummies belong to an 11-year old girl who was 137 cm tall.

Strangely, each foot had six toes. Another mummy belonged to an elderly man who had bone diseases which had most probably caused his death.

One of the mummies had a hole in the skull caused by strokes from a sword, or an arrow, according to the study more studies revealed that most of the skeletons belonged to males indicating that a garrison was stationed on the site.

Inside the tombs, excavators found linen wraps, masks made of papyri and cloth covered with a thin layer of gilded gypsum amulets and collars in the shape of the wing of god Nut,goddess of the sky, in addition to a scarab with a double line of red and white feathers and a line of roses and green triangles.

Among the items found were statues of Anobis, the god of cemeteries, in the form of an animal, statues of the four sons of Horus, seven statues of the bird known as Ba, 24 silver bracelets, two small glass neck- laces, two 'cups, two small pots and some clothes.

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