Behera, Egypt – Excavations at the Tell Kom Aziza site, near the coast of northern Egypt, have revealed a cemetery from the Greek and Roman periods, according to a ahram online Report. The necropolis is located on the site of an Old Kingdom settlement dating back approximately 4,000 years. Sherif Fathi, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, said the burials ranged from simple pits where bodies were placed directly in the ground, to tombs made of mud bricks. Painted plaster coffins and barrel-shaped coffins made of pottery from the Ptolemaic period have also been excavated. Burials were made in both north-south and east-west directions. The position of the dead also varied, with the arms folded and crossed over the pelvis or across the chest. Bones of animals, birds and fish, as well as pottery and stoneware, bread moulds, tools and ovens were also recovered. Unusual graves of intact wild boars were also discovered. Boars were associated with Seth, the Egyptian god of chaos and the untamed natural world, so the boar may have had religious significance. To read about the burial discovered in the Greco-Roman cemetery at Oxyrhynchus, go to “speaking in golden tongue“
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