Ahead of 2019's First Archaeological Discovery Tomorrow, El-Enany and Al-Mashat Tour Minya's Antiquities With 11 Ambassadors

By Akram Medhat

Today, Dr. Khaled El-Enany, Minister of Antiquities, Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of Tourism, and Maj. Gen. Kassem Hussein, Governor of Minya, accompanied a number of ambassadors and cultural attachés of 11 foreign countries in Egypt, including Spain, Japan, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, Belarus and China, on a tour of some archaeological sites in Minya Governorate, including the antiquities of Tell el-Amarna and Beni Hassan and the Minya Museum (Aten) project on the banks of the Nile, on the sidelines of the announcement of the first archaeological discovery in Minya for 2019, whose events will be held tomorrow, Saturday.

The tour began with an inspection of the Tell el-Amarna archaeological area, where they visited the tomb of Meryre I, High Priest of the god Aten, and the tomb of Panehesy, overseer of the granaries and cattle of the god Aten.

The delegation then visited the Beni Hassan archaeological area, named after one of the Arab tribes that inhabited the area, which contains the tombs of Khety and Khnumhotep II.

They were accompanied on the tour by Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Mostafa Abdeen, President of Minya University, and a number of members of the House of Representatives for Minya Governorate.

The visit to the Minya Museum project was the tour's final stop, to inspect the latest developments in the ongoing work in preparation for its completion and opening. All work there had stopped in 2010 and resumed at the end of 2016, and in November 2018 the German parliament approved a grant of EUR 10 million to complete the third and fourth phases of the project.

During the tour, the delegation made a point of recording their visit by taking souvenir photos of themselves and their families. They were also joined by a tourist group from the Netherlands that was at Tell el-Amarna during the tour, who sang for Egypt, expressing their happiness at visiting Minya's unique antiquities.