CAIRO (AFP).- Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered a pottery workshop dating back some 4,500 years, officials said Thursday, a rare discovery providing a glimpse into daily life from millenia ago.

The find -- which included a stone pottery wheel -- was made close to the southern city of Aswan during work around the Temple of Kom Ombo on the banks of the Nile River, the antiquities ministry said.

The workshop was built during the Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (between 2613 and 2494 BC), a statement said, the same period in which the famous pyramids of Giza were constructed.

"It is one of the rare finds that sheds light on daily life, industrial activities and the development of art in ancient Egypt," Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.

Waziri said the discovery showed "the improvement and adaptation" of tools during the period as people "responded to the demands of daily life".


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