Researchers discover a sarcophagus in Egypt, “on the last day of excavations and by chance”

Frédéric Colin, director of the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Strasbourg, has just returned from Egypt. Just recovered from his emotions. On December 16, when the team he was part of was about to leave, he discovered a Middle Kingdom sarcophagus in Luxor (Egypt). One more puzzle piece to piece together the story.

We find Frédéric Colin in his laboratory in Strasbourg. He has returned from Luxor a few days ago and his head is clearly still there. His mind turned to this discovery, almost unexpected, which he did not have time to study. A sarcophagus still intact, some boards, which contain a skeleton and perhaps other things.

Frédéric Colin’s team, made up of several students including two doctoral students and a Unistra volunteer, worked for several months in Luxor. In partnership with the IFAO, the French institute of oriental archaeology.

Excavations which were to extend those carried out in 2018 and 2019 and which had already uncovered five sarcophagi from the New Kingdom (from the 14th century to the 9th century BC), reburied, that is to say moved from their initial location. This third campaign promised to be less successful. Until the very last day. As the team packs up the belongings and cleans the site, they come across, almost by chance, a sarcophagus.

“I was preparing our final context survey, documenting the context in which we find the objects. The last location was not very interesting, but we had to do a survey for next year. So the excavator delicately brushed the floor for a 3D survey, while cleaning, he saw a small piece of wood appear: one centimeter and then two and then 15. We then understood that it was a sarcophagus.

I felt enormous stress, despair even, asking myself why are we finding this an hour before the end of the project?

Frédéric Colin, archaeologist

The discovery is important, but let’s say, at first, unwelcome. Timing level. “I felt enormous stress, despair even, asking myself why are we finding this an hour before the end of the project? My job is not to find objects or contexts, it’s not about taking pleasure in the excavation, it’s not about discovering what the ancient Egyptians left us, it’s about documenting all of this, it’s about patiently constructing a puzzle that allows us to tell the story. ‘history.”

In one hour, impossible to document anything. This will be for the next campaign, in October 2025. In the meantime, what to do with this discovery? His Egyptian colleagues from the Ministry of Antiquities then provided valuable support. They authorized the Unistra team of archaeologists to store the sarcophagus by protecting it in a custom-built box on the site. “I was much more relaxed as a result, I knew that we would have all the time we needed next year to do the stratigraphic excavation of the contents of the coffin.”

The sarcophagus will therefore contain its secrets for several more months. It has not been opened to better preserve it. The first observations still allowed us to know a little more. The coffin, like those discovered in 2018 and 2019, was probably moved during an ancient construction site carried out for a pharaoh, and its origin dates back to the Middle Kingdom (around 4,000 years ago).

“It is a coffin which is made up of boards assembled in a circuit that we found in a secondary position, that is to say that the ancient Egyptians themselves had already moved it from a first context which was its resting place. With a flashlight, we were able to observe between the grooves of the boards: there is an individual whose teeth can be seen very well. The study will show if it was originally mummified. In any case, if it was modified, it didn’t last very long There, we will be more on a search by anthropologists, a search to identify the sex of the deceased, their age… So I know that the. Next year we will need an ad hoc team.”

Its content will thus be studied in 2025 “in collaboration with archaeo-anthropologists (archaeologists specializing in the excavation of human bodies), by modeling in 3D all stages of the research, as the team has been doing systematically since 2018”.

A long-term job. But in the light of history, with a capital H, what are a few months of waiting worth?

The Unistra team’s archaeological work is done piece by piece, stratum by stratum, month by month. A set of stratified layers accumulated over more than 3,000 years (a stratigraphy) of more than eight meters was thus excavated “during three excavation campaigns”or in total more than six months of fieldwork.

This coffin is therefore only one piece of the puzzle, for a broader study of the period. “Since 2018, we have been patiently building a puzzle of which we only have a few pieces. The finds from 2018 and 2019 gave us a lot of information about one area of ​​the puzzle. This new discovery is in a more distant location. Next year, we will search the entire layer, cubic meters of earth where we will find other clues. Perhaps other sarcophagi, perhaps anything else, probably objects. clues about the environment of this sarcophagus.”

This discovery may shed light on an important anthropological question

Frédéric Colin, archaeologist

He could bring a “lighting” has “an important anthropological question” who is to know “how the ancient Egyptians behaved towards the mummified body and burials of their ancestors when they discovered ancient coffins and had to expropriate them from their final resting place during major public works. “ It is also for “better understand the nature and scope of the 2018 and 2019 discovery, investigating whether the five sarcophagi constituted an isolated tomb or part of a larger, more systematic set of reburials“, that this new mission had taken place.