Scientists have discovered a massive burial with more than 300 tombs in Egypt that they are calling the new ‘City of the Dead.’
The city of Aswan was an important trade, quarry and military zone when it was first established more than 4,500 years ago – but the lives of its people have long remained a mystery.
The team has been working at the site for five years and recently uncovered 36 tombs that were reused for 900 years to include 30 to 40 mummies each – and many contained families who likely died from infectious diseases.
Patrizia Piacentini, an archaeologist at the University of Milan, told DailyMail.com that the burial site spans nearly 270,000 feet and featured up to 10 terraces of ancient tombs arranged in layers on the hill near the modern Mausoleum of Aga Khan III.
‘This was a really spectacular find, very unique in Egypt,’ said Piacentini.
‘[The people who once lived in Aswan] covered the hill with tombs. It is kind of a City of the Dead.’
Aswan, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, is located on the east bank of the Nile River.
It was home to quarries that supplied granite for many ancient Egyptian monuments still standing to this day and was a military post for the Romans, the Turks, and the British.
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