Egypt: Discovery of a Newly Uncovered Middle Kingdom Sarcophagus Sparks Key Anthropological Questions

This find dates from December 16, Agence France Presse said last Sunday. The sarcophagus is currently placed in a custom-built wooden chest. In 2025, using 3D modeling of the research stages, its content will be studied thanks to the expertise of archaeoanthropologists (archaeologists specializing in the excavation of human bodies).

An anthropologically remarkable discovery

These excavations, which lasted two months, were organized by members of the French Institute of Oriental Archeology (IFAO) and the University of Strasbourg, including Frédéric Colin, director of the Institute of Egyptology.

The latter explained to AFP that this “remarkable” discovery allows us to know more about the behavior that the Egyptians adopted towards the graves of their ancestors, and more broadly mummified bodies. According to him, it is a “important anthropological question”.

Due to “public works”, the Egyptians sometimes had to move, or “expropriate” the bodies of their deceased. Indeed, this sarcophagus was reburied, which means that the body of the deceased was reburied after being exhumed.

When will the next excavations take place?

These excavations follow previous campaigns, carried out between 2018 and 2019, where five sarcophagi from the New Kingdom (from the 14th century to the 9th century BC) were discovered. It was also a matter of reburial for these. The question was whether this practice was common for the time or not.

During three excavation campaigns, or six months in the field, the researchers excavated stratified layers more than eight meters high and which had accumulated over nearly 3,000 years. For now, researchers have only scratched the layer where the coffin is located. A next excavation campaign on the site will take place in October 2025.