CAIRO: Egypt's Antiquities Ministry says archaeologists have uncovered part of an ancient cemetery near the country's famed pyramids on the Giza plateau just outside Cairo.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says Saturday the cemetery houses burial shafts and tombs of top officials and a fine limestone statue from the Old Kingdom's Fifth Dynasty (2465-2323 BC).

Ashraf Mohi, the head of the Giza Plateau archaeological site, says scientists know that the cemetery had been reused extensively in the Late Period (664-332 BC), as archaeologists found painted and decorated wooden anthropoid coffins, and wooden and clay funerary masks from that period.

Egypt has touted a series of archaeological finds recently, hoping such discoveries will spur tourism, which suffered a major setback during the unrest that followed the 2011 uprising.