Spanish-Egyptian Team Uncovers 4,400-Year-Old Saqqara Tomb With 2 Chapels and Intact Colors
Updated
Updated · Euronews · Sep 9
Spanish-Egyptian Team Uncovers 4,400-Year-Old Saqqara Tomb With 2 Chapels and Intact Colors
3 articles · Updated · Euronews · Sep 9
Summary
A late Fifth Dynasty mastaba found at Saqqara contains two funerary chapels for senior official Yunmen and his father Iti, with reliefs and texts preserved in unusually vivid original colors.
The discovery came during summer excavations by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, whose mapping work led them to a previously unknown tomb in the Mariette necropolis.
Agricultural scenes, offering processions, donkeys and a high-quality architrave are among the best-preserved features, giving researchers new evidence on art, architecture and administrative life under Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi.
Archaeologists say the double burial may reflect Yunmen's rise from a provincial family into the central administration, while the broader project is reconstructing how Saqqara functioned as a working necropolis and has already pointed to two more nearby mastabas.