25th Dynasty Artifacts Found at the Karnak Temple Complex
Friday, March 6, 2015
PARIS, FRANCE—A pit, or favissa, near the temple of the god Ptah at Karnak has yielded 38 religious artifacts that had been placed around a seated statue of the god Ptah. The items date from the eighth to seventh centuries B.C. and include 14 statues and figurines of Osiris; three statuettes of baboons; two statuettes of the goddess Mut; one head and fragments of a statue of Bastet, the cat goddess; two unidentified statuette bases; a small plaque and part of a small stele marked with the name of the god Ptah; and several inlays—an iris, cornea, beards, and headdresses. A sphinx statue and a small statue head, possibly of the god Imhotep, were found in the upper part of the pit. The removal of the objects from the pit was recorded by a topographer specialized in archaeology, who complied hundreds of photographs taken during the fieldwork to make a virtual 3-D reconstruction of each step of the excavation. This allowed the scientists from the Centre franco-égyptien d’étude des temples de Karnak (CNRS/Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities) to excavate the site quickly, in order to protect the valuable artifacts, and preserve all the data. To read more about the excavation of a tomb belonging to a priestess at Karnak, see "Tomb of the Chantress."
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