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Five Tombs of Senior Statesmen Discovered in Egypt

Sarcophaguses that are around 2,500 years old, from the newly discovered burial site near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, are seen during a presentation in Giza, Egypt November 14, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo
Sarcophaguses that are around 2,500 years old, from the newly discovered burial site near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, are seen during a presentation in Giza, Egypt November 14, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo
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Five Tombs of Senior Statesmen Discovered in Egypt

Sarcophaguses that are around 2,500 years old, from the newly discovered burial site near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, are seen during a presentation in Giza, Egypt November 14, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo
Sarcophaguses that are around 2,500 years old, from the newly discovered burial site near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, are seen during a presentation in Giza, Egypt November 14, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has announced the discovery of five historic cemeteries in the Saqqara region, Giza, (western Cairo) that belong to major statesmen from the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC), and the First Intermediate Period (2181-2055 BC), dating to over 4,600 years ago. The ministry organizes a media tour in the site on Saturday to explore the cemeteries.

Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El Anani visited the discovery site to examine the excavation works led by the Egyptian mission near the King Merenre pyramid in Saqqara. “Five engraved cemeteries containing burials and antiquities from the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period have been discovered in the Saqqara region, which saw many archeological discoveries in the past years,” the minister noted in an official statement.

“This discovery will help rewrite the First Intermediate Period in the Egyptian history because it could provide more information about those who lived and ruled during that period. It was a critical phase in the Egyptian history, it saw the political and economic collapse of the state, the independence of rulers each in his region, and an economic deterioration caused by wasting the state’s resources on building the pyramids in the Old Kingdom, in addition to the scarcity of Nile water and its impact on agriculture,” Dr. Hussein Abdul Bassir, director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Saqqara is a part of the Memphis cemetery, located 40 km west of Cairo, and was named after God Seker from the Old Kingdom. The region is an open museum featuring antiquities from different eras of the Egyptian history.
“The first cemetery, burying a senior statesman named Eri, includes a well leading to a burial chamber with engraved walls featuring funerary drawings including sacrifices tables, the palace’s façade, containers of the seven oils, a huge tomb built of limestone, and a collection of engraved pieces that belonged to the cemetery’s owner,” said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt and head of the Saqqara mission, in a press statement.

“The archeological mission currently works on cleaning and documenting the discovered cemeteries,” he added.

The second cemetery, a rectangle-shaped well belongs to the wife of a man named ‘Yart’. The third belongs to a man who had many titles including the supervisor of the grand house. The fourth cemetery belongs to a lady, ‘Betty’ who held many titles; it’s a rectangular well located at six meters underground. Built for a man called ‘Heno’, the fifth cemetery is a rectangular well built at seven meters underground. Its owner had many titles including the supervisor of the royal palace and the mayor.

The Pyramid of Djoser, the oldest stone construction in history, is Saqqara’s most known landmark. The Saqqara archeological site includes the cemeteries of kings and senior statesmen from the 1st and 2nd Dynasties, in addition to king pyramids from the 5th and 6th Dynasties including the King Wenis Pyramid, who was the first to engrave his burial chamber with texts to protect himself during his journey in the other world.

The region also features cemeteries of statesmen from the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2055-1650 BC), and the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC) known for its unique architecture and constructions such as the cemetery of King Horemheb (1323-1295 BC).

The region also houses the cemetery of sacred calf Apis, known as Serapeum of Saqqara, which was used from the 18th Dynasty until the Ptolemaic Kingdom. But Saqqara is not only Pharaonic; it includes Coptic landmarks such as the Monastery of Anba Ermia, located to the southeast of King Djoser’s pyramid collection. The Monastery was used until the 10th century AD.

Over the past year, Saqqara witnessed many archeological discoveries including hundreds of colored tombs containing well-preserved mummies of senior statesmen and priests from the 26th Dynasty, selected among the world’s top 10 archeological discoveries in 2020. Two cemeteries of priest Wa Ti, and the supervisor of the royal palace ‘Khoy’, in addition to several cat cemeteries were unearthed last year as well.

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Heavy Snow in Poland Leaves Drivers Stranded in Tailbacks of up to 20 Km

Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
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Heavy Snow in Poland Leaves Drivers Stranded in Tailbacks of up to 20 Km

Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)
Cars drive on a road during heavy snowfall in central Warsaw, Poland, 30 December 2025. (EPA)

Heavy snowfall in Poland caused tailbacks stretching as far as 20 km (12.43 miles) on a motorway between ​the capital Warsaw and the Baltic port city of Gdansk during the night, police said on Wednesday.

While the situation left hundreds of people trapped in their cars in freezing conditions, by the early hours of ‌Wednesday morning traffic ‌was moving again, ‌according ⁠to ​police.

"The ‌difficult situation began yesterday after 4 p.m., when the first trucks on the S7 route... began having trouble approaching the slopes," said Tomasz Markowski, a spokesperson for police in the northern city of ⁠Olsztyn.

"This led to a traffic jam stretching approximately ‌20 kilometers overnight." Deputy Infrastructure Minister ‍Stanislaw Bukowiec ‍told a press conference that nobody had ‍been hurt as a result of the difficult situation on the roads.

Anna Karczewska, a spokesperson for police in Ostroda, said officers had ​tried to help drivers who found themselves stuck. Ostroda lies on ⁠the highway about 40 km west of Olsztyn.

"We helped as much as we could, and we had coffee and hot tea for the drivers, which the Ostroda City Hall had prepared for us," she said.

State news agency PAP reported that there had also been some disruption to railways and airports, ‌but that services were returning to normal.

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Infant Screen Exposure Shapes Long-Term Brain Changes and Teen Anxiety, Study Finds  

The study concluded that children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two are exposed to endure adolescent mental health. (The University of Queensland)
The study concluded that children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two are exposed to endure adolescent mental health. (The University of Queensland)
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Infant Screen Exposure Shapes Long-Term Brain Changes and Teen Anxiety, Study Finds  

The study concluded that children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two are exposed to endure adolescent mental health. (The University of Queensland)
The study concluded that children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two are exposed to endure adolescent mental health. (The University of Queensland)

Children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two showed changes in brain development that were linked to slower decision-making and increased anxiety by their teenage years, according to new study released by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore.

Prepared in collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the study focuses on infancy, a period when brain development is most rapid and especially sensitive to environmental influences.

The amount and type of screen exposure in infancy are largely determined by parental and caregiver awareness and parenting practices, highlighting a critical window for early guidance and intervention, showed the study, published in eBioMedicine on Tuesday.

It said the researchers followed 168 children before age two and conducted brain scans at three time points (ages 4.5, 6, and 7.5), which allowed them to track how brain networks developed over time rather than relying on a single snapshot.

Children with higher infant screen time showed an accelerated maturation of brain networks responsible for visual processing and cognitive control.

The researchers suggest this may result from the intense sensory stimulation that screens provide. Notably, screen time measured at ages three and four did not show the same effects, underscoring why infancy is a particularly sensitive period.

The study showed that children with high screen exposure, the networks controlling vision and cognition specialized faster, before they had developed the efficient connections needed for complex thinking. This can limit flexibility and resilience, leaving the child less able to adapt later in life.

It said this premature specialization came at a cost: children with these altered brain networks took longer to make decisions during a cognitive task at age 8.5, suggesting reduced cognitive efficiency or flexibility.

Those with slower decision-making, in turn, reported higher anxiety symptoms at age 13. These findings suggest that screen exposure in infancy may have effects that extend well beyond early childhood, shaping brain development and behavior years later.

In a related study, the same team found that infant screen time is also associated with alterations in brain networks that govern emotional regulation — but that parent-child reading could counteract some of these brain changes.

Researchers found that their results give a biological explanation for why limiting screen time in the first two years is crucial.

“But it also highlights the importance of parental engagement, showing that parent-child activities, like reading together, can make a real difference,” said Asst Prof Tan Ai Peng, Clinician-Scientist at NUS, and the study's senior author.

The study concluded that children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two are exposed to endure adolescent mental health, particularly on cognitive performance and anxiety levels.

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Indonesia Raises Alert for Mount Bur Ni Telong Volcano after Spike of Activity

Explosive activity concentrates at the north-east crater of the Mount Etna, as an eruption started on Dec. 24 continues, in Sicily, Italy, Monday Dec. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)
Explosive activity concentrates at the north-east crater of the Mount Etna, as an eruption started on Dec. 24 continues, in Sicily, Italy, Monday Dec. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)
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Indonesia Raises Alert for Mount Bur Ni Telong Volcano after Spike of Activity

Explosive activity concentrates at the north-east crater of the Mount Etna, as an eruption started on Dec. 24 continues, in Sicily, Italy, Monday Dec. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)
Explosive activity concentrates at the north-east crater of the Mount Etna, as an eruption started on Dec. 24 continues, in Sicily, Italy, Monday Dec. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)

Indonesian authorities have raised the alert level for the Mount Bur Ni Telong volcano in the country’s westernmost province of Aceh to its second highest following a series of increased activity and volcanic earthquakes, official said Wednesday.

The 2,624-meter (8,600-foot) stratovolcano in Aceh's Bener Meriah regency recorded at least seven earthquakes on Tuesday evening that were felt about five kilometers (three miles) away, while seismographs also detected seven shallow volcanic earthquakes along with 14 deep quakes and two tectonic quakes, said Lana Saria, the acting head of the Geological Agency at Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

She said based on the results of visual and instrumental monitoring which show the occurrence of increased volcanic activity for Mount Bur Ni Telong, scientists raised the alert level from the third to the second highest level Tuesday evening.

“Aftershocks following local tectonic events indicate magma activity is easily triggered by tectonic disturbances,” Saria said, adding that the increase in seismic activity has been ongoing since July and became more intense and shallow in the past two months.

According to The Associated Press, the agency's visual monitoring showed the volcano clearly visible with no crater smoke. However, she warned of possible eruption, including phreatic blasts and hazardous volcanic gases near areas with fumaroles and solfataras, openings in the Earth’s crust that emit steam and gases.

Authorities urged residents and visitors to stay at least 4 kilometers (2.4 miles) from the crater and avoid fumarole and solfatara zones during cloudy or rainy weather because gas concentrations can be life-threatening.

The heightened alert came as the Bener Meriah area is still recovering from catastrophic floods and landslides earlier this month that struck 52 cities and regencies on Sumatra island, leaving 1,141 people dead with 163 residents still missing and more than 7,000 injured, the National Disaster Management Agency said. In Bener Meriah alone, 31 people died and 14 are still missing after the floods and landslides hit the regency, disrupting access to remote villages and displacing more than 2,100 residents.

Local media said people living in three villages within a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) radius from the crater are being evacuated as officials fear that heavy rains combined with volcanic activity could worsen conditions and complicate evacuation efforts.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 280 million people, has over 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.