Oldest non-royal mummy ever discovered in Egypt found at bottom of deep shaft, wrapped in gold
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Cairo — Egyptian archaeologists who have spent years meticulously excavating a site amid the ancient ruins of Saqqara, near Cairo, announced a number of major discoveries on Thursday dating to the fifth and sixth dynasties of Egypt's "Old Kingdom," more than 4,000 years ago. One of the most important was a large, rectangular limestone sarcophagus found at the bottom of a vertical shaft about 50 feet deep. "The sarcophagus was about 45 tons and the lid was about 5 tons," Dr. Zahi Hawass, the director of the Egyptian excavation team at the Gisr el-Mudir site in the ancient city of Saqqara, told CBS News. Renowned Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass peers into a sarcophagus found at the bottom of a deep vertical shaft in Saqqara, near Cairo, in a photo shared with CBS News on January 26, 2023, by Ali Abu Desheesh, one of the archaeologists on Hawass' team. Courtesy o