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Piers Leigh

Workers use a hand-cranked winch to lower tools and other gear to the mummy workshop and tombs 100 feet below. The burial complex occupied a prime location at Saqqara—within sight of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, one of Egypt’s oldest and most sacred monuments.

Archaeologists Maysa Rabeeh (left) and Mohammed Refaat (right) examine the degraded wooden coffin of a priest named Ayawet who was interred with crossed arms—a divine position usually reserved only for pharaohs.

A priest named Ayput was interred in a stone sarcophagus carved in the shape of a human, a style known as anthropoid. The mummy’s wrapping were coated with tar or resin, giving it a dark color.

Ramadan Hussein peers inside a stone sarcophagus in search of mummies. The team discovered more than 50.