Egypt announces two archaeological finds in just one day

CAIRO – The Egyptian archaeological mission on Tuesday discovered the remains of a large pottery workshop dating from the Greco-Roman era in Beheira Province north of the capital Cairo.

“The workshop that began in the third century BC and lasted until the first century AD contains ancient buildings, clay-mixing tools, rooms for the formation of pots, drying machines, and incinerators,” said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt.

Ayman Ashmawy, head of Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector at the Ministry of Antiquities, said the discovered incinerators have updraft kilns built of red bricks and are surrounded by mud bricks to bear the pressure of burning.

The mission also unveiled a residential complex of houses made of mud bricks that contain daily used cooper-made pots, food warehouses, some bronze coins as well as some tombs and skeletons, according to Ashmawy.

In related news, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced in a statement the completion of the excavation of the second Khufu Boat in the Giza plateau in the southwest of Cairo.

“The Egyptian-Japanese mission has extracted 1,700 wooden pieces from 13 layers inside the pit discovered beside Khufu pyramid,” said Issa Zidan, supervisor of the restoration work of the second Khufu Boat at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

“The registration and documentation of all pieces have been done, and 1,343 pieces were transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum. The mission is now in the stage of assembling and re-installing the boat,” he added.

Khufu, the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty in the first half of the Old Kingdom period, ruled Egypt from 2551 BC to 2528 BC. He commissioned the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.