Archaeologists unearth 3200 BC tombs in Egypt's Nile Delta

Cairo: The archaeologists have unearthed more than 100 burial tombs that date back to the period before Egypt's Pharaonic kingdoms that first emerged more than 5,000 years ago, revealed the Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry revealed on Wednesday.

Around 110 tombs with some human remain and pottery were discovered at an archaeological site in the Koum-El-Khulgan area in Dakahlia province, about 150 kilometres northeast of Cairo.

The Egyptian archaeology team believe that the ancient remnants are from three different civilizations in the pre-Pharaonic era - the civilization of Lower Egypt known as Bhutto 1 and 2, the Civilization of Naqada III, and the second transition era known as the Hyksos period.

The findings include 68 oval-shaped tombs dating from the Predynastic Period (6000 – 3150 BC), five tombs from the era of Naqada III (3200-3000 BC) and 37 rectangular-shaped tombs from the Second Intermediate Period (1782-1570 BC), the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

"This is an extremely interesting cemetery because it combines some of the earliest periods of Egyptian history with another important era, the time of the Hyksos," said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo, to Reuters. "Egyptologists are working to understand how the Egyptians and the Hyksos lived together and to what degree the former took on Egyptian traditions."

The team has also discovered ovens, stoves, pottery vessels, bits of mud-brick foundations, amulets and scarabs, some of which were crafted with semi-precious stones. The excavations will continue to reveal more secrets from this region, the statement added.