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Date Posted: 11:17:22 05/05/02 Sun
Author: theefool
Subject: New pyramid found in Egypt

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have stumbled on the 110th pyramid to be discovered in Egypt - the 4500-year-old tomb of a queen whose identity remains a mystery.

"When we discover in Egypt a tomb or a statue, it's something important," said Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Antiquities today.

"But when we discover a pyramid, it's the most important thing."

Hawass said the last such discovery was four years ago, when he found another queen's pyramid at Saqqara, south of Cairo.

The latest discovery was made by a Swiss team excavating the tomb of the 4th dynasty pharaoh Redjedef, son and successor of Cheops - also known as Khufu - of Great Pyramid fame.

The Swiss archaeologists were clearing sand from desert around Redjedef's unfinished pyramid just outside Cairo when they found an unmistakable shape: sharply cut blocks rising just a few metres above a square base of just five by five metres.

The discovery "was completely by accident," Hawass said.

The site is just a few kilometre from Cheop's Great Pyramid, one of the world's best-known pyramids.

Redjedef ruled for a few years after Cheop's death and may have been killed by his brother in an internecine power struggle.

The Swiss archaeologists, who completed a two month excavation of the queen's pyramid last week, found it contained three chambers besides the tomb located about five metres underground.

No mummy was found - ancient tomb robbers had been at work, Hawass said.

Researchers did find a remnant of a limestone sarcophagus, some pottery and one alabaster jar of the type used to store organs removed from a body before it is mummified.

The new pyramid's proximity to the much larger pyramid of Redjedef and its small size indicate it was the tomb of a woman, probably the sister, daughter or wife of Redjedef.

"All this evidence proves that once a queen was buried in this pyramid," Hawass said.

She may have been both sister and wife of Redjedef, said Hawass, noting the only hieroglyphs found in the tomb spelled out Cheops. Most queen's tombs found in Egypt bear no trace of the occupants own name, Hawass said.

In all, 110 pyramids have now been found in Egypt, Hawass said.

Another 20 tombs atop which pyramids probably once sat have also been found, he said.

The Associated Press

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