CAPE TOWN - A new burial chamber has been uncovered at the bottom of a communal burial shaft, 30 metres deep, during excavations by an Egyptian-German mission in Saqqara, the Egypt state information services announced on Sunday.
The new chamber is connected to the mummification workshop discovered in 2018 that has a large tomb complex including five burial chambers.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt's supreme council of antiquities, said that the new chamber contained four poorly preserved wooden coffins.
According to the research team, one of the coffins belongs to a woman named Didibastett.
Didibastett is believed to have been buried with six canopic jars (urns), which contradicts ancient Egyptian customs in which the embalmed lungs, stomach, intestines and liver of the deceased were stored in four jars under the protection of four gods, known as the Four Sons of Horus.
According to the statement, the mission examined the contents of Didibastett’s two extra jars using a computerised tomography (CT) scan.
Preliminary analysis of the images indicated that both jars contained human tissue.
The mission said based on the result, there was a possibility that Didibastett received a special form of mummification that preserved six of her organs.
Researchers said that after studying texts on the coffins and sarcophagi in the burial chambers, the mission identified priests and priestesses of a mysterious snake goddess, known as Niut-shaes.
According to the mission, indications are that the priests of Niut-shaes were buried together, and that she became a prominent goddess during the 26th Dynasty.
In July 2018, Khaled El-Enany, Egypt's minister of tourism and antiquities, announced to the world the discovery of a mummification workshop complex at Saqqara from the 26th Dynasty (ca. 664-525 BC).