AN INCREDIBLE detail on an Ancient Egyptian tomb item that had gone unnoticed for millennia has been spotted.
This “rare and exciting” discovery was found on the artefact as it was prepared for display at a museum exhibition.
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A complete handprint was spotted on a clay model designed to go inside a tomb.
It is likely the hand of the object’s maker, who would have touched it before the clay set, an Egyptologist at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum said.
The hand print is estimated to have been left a jaw-dropping 4,000 years ago.
Helen Strudwick, senior Egyptologist at the Fitzwilliam Museum, said: “We’ve spotted traces of fingerprints left in wet varnish or on a coffin in the decoration, but it is rare and exciting to find a complete handprint underneath this soul house.
“This was left by the maker who touched it before the clay dried.
“I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before.”
The print was found on the base of a “soul house” – a building-shaped clay model placed inside a tomb.
These soul houses may have acted as offering trays – or as a place for the deceased’s soul to reside.
This particular model is dated to 2055-1650 BC.
It is set to go on display at the university’s Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition, which opens on October 3.
Strudwick added: “You can just imagine the person who made this, picking it up to move it out of the workshop to dry before firing.
“Things like this take you directly to the moment when the object was made and to the person who made it, which is the focus of our exhibition.”
Analysis suggests this item was made by coating a framework of wooden sticks with clay to form a two-storey building.
Its staircases would have been made by pinching the wet clay.
The use of ceramics was widespread across Ancient Egypt – both for functional and decorative use.
It is not the only amazing Egyptian discovery to be reported in recent weeks.
Researchers have used modern technology to learn more about The Bashiri Mummy, also known as the “untouchable one”.
This mummy has long remain fully wrapped up due to fears of causing damage to the intricately tied fabric.
But X-ray and CT scanners have allowed researchers to unveil ancient mysteries without causing such harm to artefacts.
Scans revealed that the that Bashiri Mummy would have been an adult man who stood about 5.5 feet tall.
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