A mission from the Ministry of Antiquities will soon begin excavation work at El-Gorefa archaeological area, located north of Tuna El-Gabal site, believing it contains an ancient cemetery, according to a Sunday press release published on the Ministry of Antiquities’ official Facebook page.
The mission is searching for the cemetery that dates back to the New Kingdom, which is believed to include the tombs of ministers, nobles, and top officials of that era.
Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri said in the press release that according to the burial beliefs during the New Kingdom, the cemetery could be probably be found in this area, where cemeteries were transferred from the east to the west bank of the Nile, as for tombs in Luxor.
A cemetery of Old Kingdom nobles was previously found in the Al-Sheikh Saeed area on the east bank of the Nile, while those of the Middle Kingdom were moved to the north, at the city of Al-Barsha.
Earlier in May, a cemetery that dates back to the Late Period, with 17 mummies buried in it, was discovered in Tuna El-Gabal, the same location where the mission is searching near in Minya, Upper Egypt,.
The mummies were found buried eight metres beneath the ground, alongside a number of sarcophagi, where two of them are anthropoid coffins carved in clay, while the others are made of stone.
