The tomb of an ancient Egyptian royal chamberlain was discovered in Sector A of the Bubasteum necropolis in Saqqara during its first excavation season, Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry announced on Sunday.
The necropolis, located on the desert boundary of Saqqara, is part of a Ptolemaic and Roman temple complex dedicated to the ancient Egyptian deity Bastet (Bast), the goddess of cats.
Excavations of the site revealed the remains of an Old Kingdom tomb’s funerary chapel, as well as the tomb’s false door still in its original position.
False doors served in ancient Egyptian belief as a threshold between life and death, where deity or spirit of the dead could cross back and forth. They are usually carved or painted along the west wall of a tomb’s funerary chapel, in line with the ancient association of the west with the land of the dead.
In front of the false door, archaeologists uncovered a complete set of alabaster funerary tools, including an offering table and disc, a purification basin, a jug, and a basin.
Tomb belongs to ancient Egyptian royal scribe
Both the false door and several of the tools bear hieroglyphic inscriptions of the tomb owner’s name, Sekhentiu-Ptah, and their titles as one who served in a prominent administrative position.
The titles include Royal Chamberlain, Overseer of All the King’s Works, Overseer of Royal Documents, Keeper of the Secrets of Royal Commands, Priest of the goddess Maat (ancient Egyptian deity of truth and balance), and Overseer of Scribes.
Finding the complete set of funerary tools in its original position inside the chapel represents “an important discovery, offering valuable information about funerary rituals and practices during the Old Kingdom,” said Mohamed Abdel-Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector.
Several burial shafts looting since antiquity
Kotb Fawzi, head of the Central Administration of Cairo and Giza, added the archaeological mission also uncovered an interconnected system of burial shafts containing several human burials, large quantities of colored funerary cartonnage (a material used in ancient funerary masks), and three sealed stone sarcophagi in their original conditions.
In addition, over 100 faience ushabti figurines, a wooden falcon-shaped statue, and a variety of pottery vessels were found within the burial shafts.
A number of the burial shafts found have been subject to looting since antiquity noted Dr. Amr El-Tayebi, Saqqara Antiquities Area’s director-general and head of the archaeological mission.
Tayebi pointed to openings left behind by tomb robbers between the different funerary chambers, but added that even so, the remaining artifacts still provide “great archaeological and scientific value, contributing to understanding the site’s internal layout and the development of its architecture through its successive historical phases.”
The discovery highlights the importance of the Bubasteum necropolis and its continued use across several historical periods, stated Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy.
Dr. Hisham El-Leithy, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that the excavation work followed careful excavation and stratigraphic recording, extensive documentation, as well as archaeological and linguistic studies.
All of this, Leithy noted, “helped situate the discoveries within their cultural context and retrace the necropolis’s historical and architectural development.”
