How a sarcophagus fragment helped solve an ancient Egyptian mystery

Fragment of the sarcophagus bearing the name of Menkheperre, the high priest of Amun-Ra, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and the air, who ruled the south of Egypt between 1045 and 992 BC. (Photo by Kevin Cahail)
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Updated 30 June 2024
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How a sarcophagus fragment helped solve an ancient Egyptian mystery

  • A humble piece of granite in the floor of a monastery was found to bear the name of one of Egypt’s most famous rulers
  • Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 B.C., is regarded as one of the most powerful warrior-pharaohs of ancient Egypt

LONDON: During excavations carried out at the ancient site of Abydos in Egypt in 2009, archaeologists made an unexpected discovery — the remains of a lost Coptic monastery, believed to have been founded in the fifth century by the leader of the Coptic church, Apa Moses.

That was fascinating enough, but even bigger surprises would emerge.

Deep within the excavated ruins of the monastery, archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities made a discovery that shone a light on the tensions that existed between the early Coptic church and the remnants of Egypt’s “pagan” past.

Pressed into service as a humble doorstep within the monastery was a piece of red granite, 1.7 meters long and half as wide.




The sarcophagus of Merenptah. (Photo courtesy: Frédéric Payraudeau)

A partial inscription revealed it was part of the sarcophagus of Menkheperre, the high priest of Amun-Ra, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and the air, who ruled the south of Egypt between 1045 and 992 B.C. 

The find seemed to solve one mystery ­— where Menkheperre had been buried. Previously it was thought that he must have been entombed near his power base at Thebes, in a grave yet to be discovered. Now, it seemed, he had been laid to rest in Abydos.

The existence of a fragment of his sarcophagus, set within the floor of the monastery, as the authors of a paper published in 2016 surmised, owed something to Apa Moses’ “persecution of local pagan temples,” and was “perhaps the result of the fervor with which his followers dismantled pagan structures and tombs throughout Abydos.”

And that is where the story might have ended, but for Frederic Payraudeau, an Egyptologist at Sorbonne University in Paris.




Frederic Payraudeau, an Egyptologist at Sorbonne University in Paris. (Supplied)

Ayman Damrani and Kevin Cahail, the Egyptian and American archaeologists who had discovered the fragment, recognized from the outset that the sarcophagus had another occupant before Menkheperre. 

They saw that earlier inscriptions had been overwritten and suggested the original owner might have been an unknown royal prince.

The fragment, made of hard red granite, represented “a much greater allocation of time and resources involved in its construction,” they wrote, than would have been expended on the sarcophagus of even a high official. 

This suggested the original owner “had access to royal-level workshops and materials,” and might, they concluded, have been a prince by the name of Meryamunre or Meryamun.




In this photo taken on May 11, 1976, Egyptian Ambassador Naguib Kadry and Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt attend the opening of the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Ramses II during an exhibition dedicated to him at the Grand Palais in Paris.  (AFP/File)

“When I read this article, I was very interested because I am a specialist of this period,” said Payraudeau, “and I was not really convinced by the reading of the inscriptions.”

He added: “I already suspected that this fragment was from the sarcophagus of a king, partly because of the quality of the object, which is very well carved, but also because of the decoration.”

This consisted of scenes from the Book of Gates, an ancient Egyptian funerary text reserved almost exclusively for kings.

“It is known in the Valley of the Kings on the walls of the tombs, and on the sarcophagi of the kings, and it was used only by one person, who was not a king, in a later period.

“But this is an exception, and it would have been very strange for a prince to have used this text — and especially a prince that we hadn’t heard of.”

The photographs published with the paper were of too low quality to confirm his suspicions, so he asked the author to send him high-resolution copies. “And when I saw the enlarged photographs of the objects, I could clearly see the cartouche of a king.”




The royal cartouche, or inscription, including Ramses’ name. (Photo courtesy: Frédéric Payraudeau)

A cartouche is an oval frame, underscored at one end and containing a name written in hieroglyphics, that was used to indicate royalty. This one read “User-Maat-Ra Setep-en-Ra.” 

Translated roughly as “The justice of Ra is powerful, Chosen of Ra,” it was the throne name of one of the most famous rulers of ancient Egypt — Ramses II.

Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 B.C., is regarded as one of the most powerful warrior-pharaohs of ancient Egypt, famed for having fought many battles and created many temples, monuments and cities, and known to generations of subsequent rulers and their subjects as the “great ancestor.”




The royal cartouche, or inscription, including Ramses’ name (Photo courtesy: Frédéric Payraudeau)

His was the longest reign in Egyptian history, and he is depicted in more than 300 often colossal statues found across the ancient kingdom. 

On his death, after a reign that lasted 67 years, he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Because many of the tombs were later looted, one of his successors, Ramses IX, who ruled from 1129 to 1111 B.C., had many of the remains moved for safekeeping to a secret tomb in Deir El-Bahari, a necropolis on the Nile opposite the city of Luxor.

There they lay undisturbed for almost 3,000 years until their chance discovery by a goat-herder in about 1860. 

It was not until 1881 that Egyptologists got wind of the extraordinary find, and there among the more than 50 mummies of pharaohs, each labeled with the details of who they were and where they had been originally buried, was Ramses II.

He was in a beautifully carved cedar-wood coffin. Originally, this would ordinarily have been placed inside a golden coffin — lost to antiquity — which in turn would have been housed within an alabaster sarcophagus, which itself was then placed inside a stone sarcophagus.

Small fragments of the alabaster sarcophagus, which had presumably been shattered by looters, were found in his original tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Of the granite sarcophagus, however, there was no sign — until now.




A head believed to be that of 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramses II which was discovered in Cairo is seen March 1, 2006. An ancient solar temple has been discovered beneath a flea market in a Cairo suburb. The temple was found embedded in green shist rock beneath the market. Royal statues in pink-colored granite, probably from the time of Ramses II (13th century BC) and weighing five tons, were found in the temple. (AFP/File)

The looting of graves and the reusing of sarcophagi was a result of social and economic upheaval in ancient Egypt. “The sarcophagus was intended to be used by the owner for eternity,” said Payraudeau.

But with the death of Ramses XI in 1077 B.C., at the end of a long period of prosperity, there was a civil war and then a long period of unrest, he said.

“This was the Third Intermediate Period, which saw much looting of the necropolizes because the Egyptians knew that there was gold, silver and other valuable materials, such as wood, in the tombs.”




Drawing from the temple of Khonsu in Karnak. Closeup of pharaoh Ramesses XI while taking a sort of "shower of Life" performed by two gods. (Karl Richard Lepsius/Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to ordinary grave robbers, even the authorities took part in the looting, recycling sarcophagi for their own use. That is how Menkheperre came to be buried in a sarcophagus previously used by Ramses II.

Payraudeau is not convinced that the use of a fragment of the sarcophagus in the building of the fifth-century Coptic monastery was necessarily an act of disrespect.

“When they built this monastery, they didn’t know that they were reusing the sarcophagus of Ramses, because by this time no one had been able to read hieroglyphs for about 500 years.”

It would be 1799 before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which, with a royal decree written in three languages, including ancient Greek, provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphic script.




The Rosetta Stone, shown here on display in the British Museum in London, carried three versions of inscriptions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, and the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The inscriptions enabled archaeologists to decipher ancient Egyptian scripts. (Photo by Hans Hillewaert / Wikimedia Commons)

The one remaining mystery now, said Payraudeau, was where in Abydos Menkheperre was originally buried.

“Somewhere there must be the undiscovered remains of the tomb of the high priest,” he said.

“Maybe it was completely destroyed. But I can’t let go of the idea that perhaps they reused the parts of the sarcophagus which were suitable to use as pavements and so on, and that the lid, which would have been far harder to reuse, might still be lying intact somewhere in Abydos.”

In 1817, about 3,000 years after the death of Ramses II, archaeological discoveries in Egypt inspired the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to write a sonnet reflecting on how the once seemingly eternal power of the great king the ancient Greeks knew as Ozymandias had turned to dust.

Reflecting on an inscription on the pedestal of a shattered, fallen statue, part of the poem reads: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains, round the decay, of that colossal wreck. Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”




Panorama of the Valley of the Kings, the burial place of the royals of ancient Egypt. (Nikola Smolenski/Wikimedia Commons)

In fact, not only has Ramses II’s fame grown in the 3,236 years since he was entombed in the Valley of the Kings, he has also become the most traveled of the ancient pharaohs.

In 1976, after it was noticed that his mummified remains were starting to decay, Ramses was sent to the Musee de l’Homme in Paris for restoration, along with a whimsical “passport” that gave his occupation as “King (deceased).”

Since then, he has been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors to numerous exhibitions around the world, including a return visit to Paris last year.

If the lid of his sarcophagus were discovered, it could be reunited with the mummy and its coffin, and the Ozymandias show would doubtless grow ever more popular, continuing to confound Shelley’s poetic prediction that the Great Ancestor would be forgotten, swallowed up by the sands of time.
 

 


Israel steps up Syria strikes, says Turkiye aims for ‘protectorate’

Updated 23 sec ago
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Israel steps up Syria strikes, says Turkiye aims for ‘protectorate’

The Israeli army said its forces killed several militants who opened fire on Israeli troops
Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there

DAMASCUS/JERUSALEM: Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria overnight, declaring the attacks a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus as it accused their Turkish allies on Thursday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate.
The strikes, targeting air bases, a site near Damascus and the southwest, put renewed focus on Israeli concerns about the Islamists who deposed Bashar Assad in December, with Israeli officials viewing them as a rising threat at their border.
The Israeli army, which seized ground in the southwest after Assad was toppled, said its forces killed several militants who opened fire on Israeli troops operating in that area overnight. Syria’s state news agency SANA said that Israeli shelling had killed nine people in the area.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the airstrikes late on Wednesday evening were “a clear message and a warning for the future — we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed.”
Katz said in a statement that Israel’s armed forces would remain in buffer zones within Syria and act against threats to its security, warning Syria’s government it would pay a heavy price if it allowed forces hostile to Israel to enter.
Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there, in Lebanon and other regions.
“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he told a press conference in Paris.
The Syrian foreign ministry said the Israeli strikes were an unjustified escalation aimed at destablising the country, calling on the international community to put pressure on Israel to “stop its aggression.”
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting the foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

AIR BASE DESTROYED
The strikes late on Wednesday night were some of the most intensive Israeli attacks in Syria since Assad was toppled.
The Syrian foreign ministry said Israel struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window, resulting in the near-complete destruction of the Hama air base and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.
The Israeli military said it had struck remaining military capabilities at air bases in Hama and Homs provinces, in addition to remaining military infrastructure in the Damascus area, where Syrian media and officials said the vicinity of a scientific research facility was hit.
In Hama, a Syrian military source told Reuters a dozen strikes demolished the runways, tower, arms depots and hangars at the military airport. “Israel has completely destroyed Hama air base to ensure it is not used,” the source said.
Israel also said on Wednesday it targeted the T4 air base in Homs province, which it has repeatedly hit over the past week.
In the incident in southwestern Syria, the Israeli military said its forces were operating in the Tasil area, “confiscating weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure” when several militants fired on them.
“The forces responded with fire and eliminated several armed terrorists from the ground and air,” the Israeli military said, adding there were no casualties among Israeli forces.
“The presence of weapons in southern Syria constitutes a threat to the State of Israel,” it said. “The IDF will not allow a military threat to exist in Syria and will act against it.”

Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight leaves more than 50 Palestinians dead

Updated 03 April 2025
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Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight leaves more than 50 Palestinians dead

  • The Israeli military ordered the residents of several areas — Shujaiya, Jadida, Turkomen and eastern Zeytoun — to evacuate on Thursday
  • Israel has imposed a month-long halt on all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle

DEIR AL BALAH: Overnight strikes by Israel killed at least 55 people across the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said Thursday, a day after senior government officials said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and establish a new security corridor across the Palestinian territory.
Israel has vowed to escalate the nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel has imposed a month-long halt on all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle.
Officials in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the strip, said the bodies of 14 people had been taken to Nasser Hospital – nine of them from the same family. The dead included five children and four women. The bodies of another 19 people, including five children aged between 1 and 7 years and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European hospital near Khan Younis, hospital officials said. In Gaza City, 21 bodies were taken to Ahli hospital, including those of seven children.
The Israeli military ordered the residents of several areas — Shujaiya, Jadida, Turkomen and eastern Zeytoun — to evacuate on Thursday, adding that the army “will work with extreme force in your area.” It said people should move to shelters west of Gaza City.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel was establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu referred to the new axis as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting it would run between the two southern cities. He said it would be “a second Philadelphi corridor ” referring to the Gaza side of the border with Egypt further south, which has been under Israeli control since last May.
Israel has reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, also named for a former settlement, that cuts off the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow coastal strip. Both of the existing corridors run from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.
“We are cutting up the strip, and we are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages,” Netanyahu said.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority, led by rivals of Hamas, expressed its “complete rejection” of the planned corridor. Its statement also called for Hamas to give up power in Gaza, where the militant group has faced rare protests recently.
Netanyahu’s announcement came after the defense minister, Israel Katz, said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones, apparently referring to an existing buffer zone along Gaza’s entire perimeter. He called on Gaza residents to “expel Hamas and return all the hostages,” saying “this is the only way to end the war.”
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave the territory.
Netanyahu visits Hungary
Netanyahu arrived in Hungary early Thursday on his second foreign trip since the world’s top war crimes court issued an arrest warrant against him in November over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the the International Criminal Court has said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas — charges that Israeli officials deny.
ICC member countries, such as Hungary, are required to arrest suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no way to enforce that and relies on states to comply. As Netanyahu arrived in Budapest, Hungary said it will begin the procedure of withdrawing from the ICC.
Plans for Gaza
On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel plans to maintain overall security control of Gaza after the war and implement US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary emigration.”
Palestinians have rejected the plan, viewing it as expulsion from their homeland after Israel’s offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced around 90 percent of the population.
Israeli strikes on Syria
Separately, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southwestern Syria, Syrian state media reported Thursday.
SANA said the nine were civilians, without giving details. Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were local gunmen from the Daraa province, frustrated with Israeli military encroachment and attacks in recent months.
Israel has seized parts of southwestern Syria and created a buffer-zone there, which it says is to secure Israel’s safety from armed groups. But critics say the military operation has created tensions in Syria and prevents any long-term stability and reconstruction for the war-torn country.
Israel also struck five cities in Syria late Wednesday, including over a dozen strikes near a strategic air base in the city of Hama.


Germany urges return to ‘serious’ talks on Gaza truce

Updated 27 min 11 sec ago
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Germany urges return to ‘serious’ talks on Gaza truce

  • Speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Berlin, Scholz also called for more humanitarian aid for Gaza

Berlin: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Thursday for a return to “serious” negotiations to end the Gaza conflict as Israel pushed on with a renewed assault targeting Hamas in the territory.
“What is needed now is a return to the ceasefire and the release of all hostages,” Scholz said, urging a return to “serious negotiations with the aim of agreeing a post-war order for Gaza that protects Israel’s security.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was “dissecting” the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.
At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations there, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Speaking alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Berlin, Scholz also called for more humanitarian aid for Gaza.
“No humanitarian aid has reached Gaza for a month,” he said. “This cannot and must not continue.”
He added that “a sustainable peace that stabilizes the situation in the West Bank as well as Gaza can only be achieved through a political solution.”
Abdullah II also called for a return to a ceasefire and for aid deliveries to resume into Gaza.
“Israel’s war on Gaza must stop. The ceasefire must be reinstated... and aid flow must resume,” he said.
“The humanitarian tragedy in Gaza has already reached unspeakable levels and action must be taken to immediately address it.”


UN rights chief says ‘appalled’ by reports of Khartoum executions

Updated 03 April 2025
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UN rights chief says ‘appalled’ by reports of Khartoum executions

GENEVA: UN rights chief Volker Turk said Thursday that he was “appalled” by reports of extrajudicial killings of civilians in Sudan’s capital Khartoum last week after its recapture by the army from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“I am utterly appalled by the credible reports of numerous incidents of summary executions of civilians in several areas of Khartoum, on apparent suspicions that they were collaborating with the Rapid Support Forces,” Turk said in a statement.


Turkiye detains 11 after protest boycott calls

Updated 03 April 2025
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Turkiye detains 11 after protest boycott calls

  • The leader of the main opposition CHP party called for the purchase boycott on Wednesday to put more pressure on the government

Istanbul: Turkish authorities on Thursday detained at least 11 people suspected of spreading calls for a blanket boycott of purchases to protest the jailing of Istanbul’s opposition mayor, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the calls, accusing the suspects of inciting “hatred and discrimination,” Anadolu said, adding that authorities were seeking five additional suspects.
The leader of the main opposition CHP party called for the purchase boycott on Wednesday to put more pressure on the government after the March 19 arrest of Istanbul’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Imamoglu is the main rival to President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, and his detention set off a wave of mass protests not seen in Turkiye for more than a decade.
Nearly 2,000 people, including several hundred students and young people, have been arrested since the start of the protests.
Some cafes, restaurants and bars heeded the boycott call and remained closed Wednesday in Istanbul as well as in the capital Ankara, AFP journalists reported.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel had already launched a call to boycott dozens of Turkish companies and groups reputed to be close to Erdogan’s government.