HIDDEN BENEATH

Archeologists Uncover Jaw-Dropping 4,300-Year-Old Secret

A joint excavation south of the Egyptian capital has unearthed the resting place of a father-son pair who once served pharaohs.

Archeologists have discovered a 4,300-year-old tomb belonging to an ancient judge and his father, with paint on its carved walls still intact after more than 40 centuries underground. The tomb was found at Saqqara, a sprawling necropolis south of Cairo, and dates to the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, a Fifth Dynasty ruler who presided over sweeping administrative reforms in the 24th Century B.C., Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry said. It was built for Yunmen, a high-ranking judge who heard appeals and complaints from the kingdom’s subjects. Amr al-Tayeb, director of the Saqqara site, told AFP that Yunmen’s role “align[s] with the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat,” the goddess of truth and justice. The tomb, discovered by an Egyptian-Spanish team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, contains two chapels—one for Yunmen and one for his father, Ity, a senior scribe. The ministry called the site’s carvings “exceptionally well-preserved.”