17 mummies newly discovered buried in Minya cemetery

Last updated: May 14, 2017 5:23 pm

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Egyptian conservators clean a female mummy dated to Pharaonic late period, (712-323 BC), in the conservation center of Egypt's Grand museum under construction, just outside Cairo, Egypt, Monday, March 17, 2014. Egypt???s antiquities minister says construction has begun on the main hall of a massive new museum by the Pyramids, the final phase of a complex that???s intended to house 100,000 ancient artifacts including King Tutankhamun's mummy. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Ministry of Antiquities announced discovering a cemetery that dates back to the Late Period, with 17 mummies buried in Al-Minya, South Egypt, according to AFP. The announcement took place at a press conference Saturday morning in Tuna el-Gebel district in Al-Minya.

“We found catacombs containing a number of mummies,” said Salah al-Kholi, a Cairo University Egyptology professor.

Minister of Antiquities, Khaled El-Anany, stated that “these shafts led to a number of corridors inside a cachette of mummies.”

The mummies are reported to be non-royal, as Kholi described the necropolis at the conference as “the first human necropolis found in central Egypt with so many mummies.”