Bronze Age · Old Kingdom · Saqqara, Giza Governorate, Egypt
Tomb of Old Kingdom official at Saqqara held bronze tools that may be medical
The decorated tomb of Weni, a mayor and priest, also held two rare wooden statues, and his skeleton shows marks of repeated heavy physical strain.
Official announcement
Saqqara, Egypt Egyptian archaeologists have found the decorated burial chamber of a high official named Weni at Saqqara, south of Cairo. The chamber dates to the Old Kingdom. A vaulted room above it held two rare wooden statues. His burial shaft contained bronze instruments that experts think doctors used.
The excavation is in the cemetery of King Merenre in south Saqqara, northwest of his pyramid. Merenre was a king of the 6th Dynasty, late in the Old Kingdom. An Egyptian mission from the Supreme Council of Antiquities leads the dig. Its head is Dr Amr El-Tayeb, director of the Saqqara antiquities area. Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy toured the site when the find was announced.
A mayor, priest and treasurer
The tomb is a mastaba, a mud-brick building raised over burial shafts cut into the ground. This one has several shafts, and one leads down to Weni's chamber. The inscriptions on its walls are in fairly good condition. The team could read his name and a long list of titles.
Weni was mayor, sem priest, overseer of all royal apartments, treasurer of the house of the north, sole companion and lord of the city of Kab. The titles show an official with both administrative and religious duties. They also place him close to the royal state.
Directly above the burial chamber, the excavators found a vaulted room filled with objects. Among them were two small wooden statues, both posed in a rare worshipping stance. Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said the figures add to what scholars know about burial goods. He said they also inform how builders used the different rooms inside Egyptian mastabas.
Medical tools but no physician's title
The bronze instruments came from inside Weni's shaft. Tools like these rarely turn up in tombs. The wall texts never give Weni the title of physician. The link between the man and the instruments therefore remains unclear.
The researchers plan further study to work out what the tools did. They also want to know why someone placed them in his burial.
The mission also found a false door that belonged to a woman named Sekhet-Nebty. She held religious titles, among them priestess of Hathor. According to the announcement, this adds evidence for the roles women played in temple life during the Old Kingdom.
Weni's skeleton has also been studied. Early results show he died after the age of 50. He had advanced disease of the teeth and the tissue around them. His bones carry marks consistent with repeated heavy physical strain. That is unexpected for a man of such high rank.
El-Tayeb said these results give a clearer picture of health and daily life in that era. Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the discovery adds new data on how builders laid out funerary mastabas. He said it also informs how people practised religion and burial rites, and how much social and administrative standing Weni held.
Fathy called the find a strong addition to the string of discoveries at Saqqara. He said the ministry will keep supporting Egyptian missions and give them the tools to work with modern scientific methods.
The team is continuing architectural, linguistic, artistic and archaeological studies of everything it has found. It is also analysing the burial contexts and objects. The aim is to learn what each part of the mastaba was used for, and how that use changed across its building phases.
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