A group of Egyptian and Italian archaeologists have uncovered a series of tombs dating to the Greco-Roman period near Aswan in southern Egypt, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The archaeologists, from the Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan uncovered the tombs on a series of terraces on a rocky hillside close to the Aga Khan Mausoleum, during a series of excavations in the area following reports of illegal excavation in the area. To date 33 of the tombs have been excavated, with an estimated total of about 300, scattered over an area of about 20 000 m².
Significantly, the tombs did not belong to pharaahs or other high ranking individuals, but to ordinary Egyptian families, and were in use between about 900 BC and 300 AD, a period which covers the occupation of Egypt by first the Persian Empire, then the Ptolemaic Greeks, and finally the Romans. Piacentini Patrizia, of the University of Milan, who has been leading the investigations, suggests that during this interval Aswan would have been a prosperous trading centre, connecting Egypt and the Mediterranean world to Nubia and the kingdoms of the African interior.
The tombs reveal much about the lives, and particularly the health, of ordinary Egyptians during the period. Between 30% and 40% of the Human remains uncovered so far belong to children and infants, suggesting a fairly high infant-mortality rate. Many of the bodies have pathologies indicative of diseases, including malnutrition, anaemia, tuberculosis and osteoarthritis. Several adult women had undergone limb amputations.
Some of the dead from the tombs were buried within coffins or sarcophagi, but many more were preserved as mummies wrapped in linen and covered by painted cartonnages (a kind of papier-mâché made of linen or papyrus and plaster). The tombs have also yielded a wide range of other artefacts, including offering tables, painted statuettes, figurines, and terracotta lamps.
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