Story thread · 4 reports / 4 sources

How burial trends in an Ancient Egyptian tomb changed over hundreds of years

thenationalnews.com · 4h · first reportShare

Archaeological investigations inside a tomb at the Theban Necropolis, opposite Luxor, have shown how burial rituals in Ancient Egypt altered due to changes in customs, and more practical reasons such as space. Spanish researchers studied one of the 400 tombs at the 4,000-year-old necropolis on the west bank of the Nile . The team from the University of La Laguna excavated the chamber, photographed the mummies, and produced sketches and descriptions of their position, orientation and relationship with the tomb’s structures. The tomb was used and reused between the 25th Dynasty (754-656 BC) and the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BC), when it was abandoned. They found 16 mummified humans, one dog and the disturbed remains of at least four people. Over time, the bodies were treated differently. At first they were kept relatively separate, in coffins, before being kept much closer together, sometimes stacked, with arms folded rather than stretched out. Senior author Dr Miguel Angel Molinero Polo