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Door to afterlife unearthed

CAIRO - Archaeologists have unearthed a 3500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said yesterday.

CAIRO - Archaeologists have unearthed a 3500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said yesterday.

These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld.

The door came from the tomb of User, the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut, a powerful, long- ruling 15th century BC queen from the New Kingdom with a famous mortuary temple near Luxor in southern Egypt.

User was a vizier for 20 years. Viziers were powerful officials assigned to the day-to-day running of the kingdom's complex bureaucracy. - Sapa-AP

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