CAIRO 

Egypt unveiled a major discovery of 250 mummies and 150 bronze statues dating back 2,500 years at the famed necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo.

In a statement, Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the find includes 150 bronze statues of different sizes of various ancient Egyptian deities such as Anubis, Amun-Min and Osiris as well as bronze vessels used in rituals of Isis, the fertility goddess in the Egyptian methodology.

According to the local Sada Al-Balad TV channel, archaeologists also found a collection of 250 painted wooden coffins with well-preserved mummies inside, along with a 9-meter-long papyrus that is believed to contain verses of the Book of the Dead.

Monday’s discovery was the largest of its kind in Saqqara since 2018.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat