Egypt finds suggest ancient royal funeral

TORONTO, March 12 (UPI) -- A find in Egypt of a wooden statue of a king, a chapel and animal mummies suggests ritual activity associated with the great Egyptian gods, researchers say.

Archaeologists from the University of Toronto said the items and evidence of a monumental building were found in Abydos, Egypt in June and July 2011.

The wooden statue may represent the female king Hatshepsut, often portrayed as male in stone because the Egyptian pharaoh was understood to be son of the god Amon-Re, and Hatshepsut was known to dress as a man for the role, a university release said Monday.

But this statue has a smaller waist and delicate jawline, acknowledging these aspects of her feminine physique, the researchers said. It is thought to be from a ceremonial procession in which wooden statues of the royal ancestors and of gods were carried by priests from the temple of Osiris to a royal tomb.

Egyptians from all levels of society built chapels and monuments along the processional route to ensure their eternal participation in the festival and their identification with Osiris, the researchers said, but building too close to the route was prohibited by the state and infringement carried the threat of the death penalty.

The proximity of the uncovered offering chapel to the procession route suggests it was that of an elite person and has been dated 1990 to 1650 B.C., they said.

"The offering chapel proves that people -- probably elites -- were able to build monuments right next to the processional route in the Middle Kingdom, and that at least one such chapel was allowed to stand in this increasingly densely built-up area and continued to receive offerings even 800 years after its initial construction," Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner of Toronto's Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations said.