Press report:

Australians unearth mummies in Egypt         
07:58 AEDT Wed Mar 2 2005

Australian archaeologists have uncovered the world's best-preserved Egyptian mummies after finding three coffins believed to be some 2,600 years old.

The Australian team, headed by Macquarie University's Professor of Ancient History, Naguib Kanawati, was digging near the Saqqara pyramids, 25 km south of Cairo, when they found three coffins dating from the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC) last week.

The head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said: "In one of the (coffins) there is one of the best preserved mummies ever found dating from the 26th Dynasty."

Prof Kanawati said all three bodies - believed to be those of officials living in the "later Egyptian period" immediately before Persia occupied the area for about 80 years - were extremely well preserved.

He said two of the coffins contained male mummies and were crafted to represent bearded figures wearing elaborate collars with their arms crossed over their chests.

The male mummies were wrapped in linen bandages and covered from head to knee by an intricate net of beads arranged to depict how they looked in life.

The third coffin, which was in worse condition than the other two, contained a mummified woman who was covered by a net of mosaic beads also depicting how she looked in life.

Prof Kanawati said the coffins, which were shaped to the human body, were crafted from cedar wood, probably obtained through trade with Lebanon at the time, and were elaborately decorated with paint.

Wooden boxes containing vital organs were also found alongside the coffins, he said.

"These were not particularly wealthy people," Prof Kanawati said.

"They are not commoners but officials. They are middle class people but not royalty."

Prof Kanawati said the site under excavation for the past 10 years by Australian archaeologists was a large cemetery initially used about 4,340 years ago for royalty during King Teti's reign.

But eventually the ground was neglected and covered by some 15 metres of sand until it was used again as a cemetery about 2,600 years later.

"By that time the art of mummification was perfected to the extreme," Prof Kanawati said.

"In Teti's time (the 6th dynasty) mummification was very primitive and the human remains found from his reign were only skeletal."

The archaeologists will start work on conducting tests on the mummies in order to try to unlock their secrets, Prof Kanawati said.

The mummies will remain in Egypt where museums have already started to bid for the items.

"We cannot and we don't want to unwrap them because that would start the deterioration," Prof Kanawati said.

"But we now have the means to study the mummies without unwrapping the mummies by using, x-rays and scans and so on."

Prof Kanawati said the unobtrusive tests would help reveal the exact age of these ancient residents and give an insight into how they lived and died.

"It will show us a great deal of information about their age, maybe the cause of death, any diseases that could be seen in scans," he said.

"You can learn a lot about their medical condition."

He said the mummies would not be handed over to the Egyptian authorities until Australian researchers could fully study the bodies.

The researchers will document their findings in an international journal published by Macquarie University, he said.

©AAP 2005