Ancient Egyptian tomb found containing 3,800-year-old mummy

Archaeologists have uncovered a 3,800-year-old tomb where the brother of one of the most important governors of ancient Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty was buried.

The intact tomb was discovered in the necropolis at Qubbet El-Hawa, which translates to Hill of Wind, by the Spanish Archaeological Mission in Aswan, Egypt.

Alejandro Jimenez-Serrano, from the University of Jaen, told Ahram Online a well preserved mummy was also found.

He said it was covered with a polychrome cartonnage, collars and a mask.

The tomb also contained funeral goods such as pottery and wooden models representing funerary boats and scenes of daily life, as well as an outer and inner coffin, both made of cedar.

Inscriptions on the coffin name the deceased as Shemai, son of Satethotep and Khema, who was governor of the Elephantine island on the Nile under the reign of Amenemhat II.

Mr Afifi said the eldest brother of Shemai, Sarenput II, also served as governor of Elephantine under the rule of Senwosret II and Senwosret III.

Previously, 14 members of the ruling family of Elephantine were discovered in Qubbet El-Hawa.

The necropolis of Qubbet El-Hawa was also the site where rock carvings depicting masked men hunting an ostrich, thought to date back 6,000 years, were found.

The paintings, pecked into the rocks with a hard point, are now barely visible due to their considerable age.

But Egyptologists from the University of Bonn traced the outlines of the visible markings to discover the dots depict three figures: a hunter with a bow, a man thought to be a hunt dancer and an African ostrich.

“This archaeological area is about a millennium older than we knew before,” Ludwig Morenz of the University of Bonn told Live Science.