Royal tomb of mystery Pharaoh who ruled 3,600 years ago unearthed in Egypt

Archaeologists have unearthed the tomb of a yet unknown Egyptian pharaoh who ruled 3,600 years ago during a time of political instability in the region.

The royal tomb was found at a depth of around 7m below ground level at the ancient Mount Anubis necropolis in Abydos, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said.

The find provides new evidence of the development of royal tombs at the necropolis.

Abydos is one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, dating back to the Abydos Dynasty, a series of kings who ruled Upper Egypt between 1700 and 1600 BC.

The mystery pharaoh’s tomb consisted of a limestone burial chamber covered with mudbrick vaults reaching a height of approximately 5m.

Archaeologists also found faded inscriptions on either side of the entrance leading to the burial chamber. One was of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys and the other set of yellow inscription bands once bore the king's name in hieroglyphs, they said.

The surviving decorations and texts bear similarities to the art and inscriptions discovered at the tomb of King Senebkay, scholars said.

Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, said the newly discovered tomb appears much larger than previously known mausoleums attributed to the Abydos Dynasty.

The name of the mystery tomb’s owner has not been determined yet but it surely belongs to one of the kings who reigned before Senebkay, he said.

The latest find came days after archaeologists found the royal burial site of another Egyptian pharaoh named Thutmose II.

The latest dig also unearthed a pottery workshop from the Roman era in the village of Banawit, north of Abydos.

Preliminary analysis suggests the pottery workshop was used during the Byzantine era and reused as a cemetery in the 7th century AD, possibly extending into the 14th century, the ministry said.

Evidence unearthed at the Banawit site points to it being one of the largest factories supplying the ancient Egyptian region with pottery and glass.

Excavations found evidence of several large kilns at the site, storage areas for vessels as well as a collection of 32 potsherds used for writing in Demotic and Greek scripts.

These potsherds, known as ostraca, detail commercial transactions at the time and the method of paying taxes, researchers said.

Several burials were also discovered at Banawit, including mudbrick tombs containing skeletons and mummies. These were likely family graves, researchers said.

One of the burials included the mummy of a sleeping child wearing a colored fabric cap and another had the skull of a woman in her 30s.

Archaeologists also found wheat roots and remains of ancient plant seeds at the site, including doum palms and barley.