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Topic: First Dynasty tombs at Helwan?

Rhi_Sarah
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Just wondering if anyone can confirm a rumour. I have heard that some intact first Dynasty tombs have been found at Helwan, is this fact or fiction?

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ausar
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The first dyansty tombs are located either in Abydos or Nekhen. I have never heard of the first intact first dyansty tomb coming from Helwan. I understand,however,that this might have been a area of pre-dyanstic culture like Maadi or others.

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Neb-Ma'at-Re
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I found a couple of articles about unearthed tombs in helwan about 2 years ago but no mention of 'intct' tombs.

1st, 2nd dynasties tombs unearthed in Helwan
Egypt, History, 2/20/2002

The Egyptian-Australian archaeological mission unearthed mud-brick and stone tombs that date back to the era of the Pharaonic first and second dynasties (5,000 years BC) in Helwan area.

Zahi Hawas, Head of the Cairo and Giza Antiquities Department, said the tombs unearthed are of a unique architectural design as they start with downward staircase leading to the funerary chambers and then the burial chamber where six tombs of small children were found.

Inside the tombs the remains of those children's skeletons were found with their heads southward, said Hawas.

He added that a wealth-telling tomb of a woman was found in a funerary chamber that has got a big wooden gallery and contained earthenware vessels that had still got the leftovers of wine and ale, in addition to alabaster dishes that also have got the leftovers of cereals and fruits.

Plaques containing engravings and inscriptions depicting the tomb owner with the offerings to be given to gods before him were also found, he said, adding the find of this particular period of the Pharaonic era is very important. http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020220/2002022026.html

Egyptian tombs may be oldest yet
Story filed: 09:38 Tuesday 29th January 2002

A team of Australian archaeologists believe they have found some of the oldest tombs in Egypt.

More than 20 were uncovered at the site of the Helwan cemetery, south-east of Cairo, and date back the more than 5,000 years.

The graves feature written Egyptian language and support theories that writing developed independently there and was not brought from ancient Babylon.

ABC Television reports the tombs were first uncovered five years ago but have only now been revealed.

Dr Christiana Kohler, of Macquarie University's Australian Centre for Egyptology, said: "We have here for the first time, very early evidence that allows us to reconstruct the further development of hieroglyphics writing during the archaic period just a couple of hundred years after writing was actually invented."

Macquarie University teams have spent more than 10 years doing excavation work in Egypt, and four years on the Helwan cemetery site. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_506991.html

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Nesu.t-bi.t neb-taui Neb-Maa't-Re sa-Re Amen-hotep

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Rhi_Sarah
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great...thanks, i'll check out those sites

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Djehuti
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up...

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Myra Wysinger
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Australian archaeologists found this well-preserved relief of a woman seated in front of an offering table.

Australians find ancient tombs in grave danger
June 15, 2004

Cairo: A team of Australian archaeologists has unearthed a 5000-year-old necropolis with 20 well-preserved tombs in a poor neighbourhood of Helwan, just outside Cairo, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has announced.

The council statement quoted Christiana Kohler, head of the Australian mission, as saying a newly discovered limestone relief, which was found within the necropolis, was one of many in Helwan representing early uses of hieroglyphic text.

"It is a duty to protect this magnificent archaeological site from the urban expansion which represents a major threat to [Helwan's] monuments," Dr Kohler was quoted as saying.

Helwan, 25 kilometres south of Cairo, is a heavily populated industrial area across the River Nile from the pyramids of Saqqara, also a cemetery site.

Some of the tombs were small and plain. Others, for the middle and upper classes, were larger and contained alabaster, limestone, clay and copper pots and pans, the statement said. It added that two large limestone tombs dated to the Old Kingdom, 2575-2134BC, also found in Helwan, have the same architectural style as some in Giza and Saqqara, their walls containing a collection of small chapels and niches.

In the summer of 2000-01, Dr Kohler and a team from the Australian Centre for Egyptology at Macquarie University also discovered six previously unknown tombs dating back to 3000BC at Helwan.

The Macquarie University website reported that the work was part of the continuing efforts of Dr Kohler to analyse, photograph and draw for the first time the several thousand objects that were found in the 1940s and 1950s by the first excavator of the Early Dynastic cemetery at Helwan, the Egyptian archaeologist Zaki Saad.

"In Egypt today, discovering unexcavated tombs of such an early date is very rare," Dr Kohler said at the time. "After four years of tough fieldwork we have finally hit pay dirt."

Among the six new tombs to have been excavated was that of a mature female who was buried in a large wooden chest. The richness and number of her grave goods suggest that she was a wealthy matron.

Associated Press

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