Archeologists in Egypt’s Aswan have uncovered burial sites with between 40 and 50 Mummified families in each.
Knewz.com has learned that the locale, due to its abundance of dead people, is already courting a new moniker—“City of the Dead”.
The tombs are connected to the city of Aswan which dates back 4,500 years ago, and some of them are said to have been reused for more than 900 years.
In its totality, the burial site covers nearly 27,000 feet comprising as many as ten terraces built into the hillside in layers.
The burials also appeared to observe a specific order with the rich and elite – like the town leader – being stowed on a terrace on the top of the hill while the middle-class citizens were buried closer to the bottom.
According to Science Direct, some of the mummified families discovered at the site may have fallen victim to infectious diseases.
“Some suffered from infectious diseases, while others had bone disorders,” Patrizia Piacentini from the University of Milan confirmed with the Daily Mail.
“The children suffered from anemia, malnutrition, and in some cases infectious diseases.”
“Another case of amputation was also found in a woman who had her leg removed but survived,” Piacentini said.
The first such tomb, per ScienceDirect, was unearthed in 2019. Inside were the remnants of four mummies; two children, a man, and a woman—presumably a family.
“At the beginning, we thought they were mother and child, but new CT scans showed they are two children,” said Piacentini.
“But we recently found a woman near them who was likely their mother and the remains of a man, likely the father.”
Piacentini doted over the find saying: “This was a really spectacular find, very unique in Egypt.”
Aswan, when it was founded four and a half centuries ago, served as a military stronghold for the Romans, Turks, and the British, and comprised a granite quarry. It was also a center for booming trade.
Piacentini says “Aswan was a crossing point since forever.”
“People were coming from the east to the west. People came here because it was the border, products from the south arrived in Aswan and then dispersed everywhere else.”
The settlement changed names a few times with its original name being Swenet. Thereafter, it became Swan which translates to market.
It was also a cosmopolitan center during its heyday accommodating the likes of Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and Africans from below the tropics.
“This is their resting place,” Piacentini concluded. “We uncover their story and then we put them back and close the tomb. For me, it was important from the beginning.”
Egyptian authorities also weighed in on the discovery with the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr Mohamed Ismail Khaled saying “This discovery adds new history to the Aga Khan area,” per The National News.
