Egyptian Mummy Queen Unearthed

RELIGION - Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, Egyptologists said today.

After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus in a pyramid discovered south of Cairo last year, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said.

They also found gold wrappings which would have been put on the fingers of the mummified person. Grave robbers ransacked the burial chamber in ancient times and stole the other objects.

"Although they did not find the name of the queen buried in the pyramid, all the signs indicate that she is Seshestet, the mother of King Teti, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty," chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said in a statement.

Teti ruled Egypt for at least 10 years around the year 2300 BC and is buried nearby. While archaeologists have found many royal mummies from ancient Egypt, most of them are from the New Kingdom, which began 500 years after Teti's time.

In January 2006 an archaeological expedition in Luxor, Egypt, unearthed a life-sized statue, dating back nearly 3,400 years, of one of the queens of the powerful king Amenhotep III.