Egypt finds 4,300-year-old tomb of ancient judge near Cairo

CAIRO: An Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission has uncovered a 4,300-year-old tomb near Cairo belonging to an ancient judge who heard the grievances of ordinary people, local authorities said. The tomb was found at Saqqara, a sprawling necropolis south of the capital, and dates back to the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, one of the most influential rulers of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty who oversaw a period of administrative reform in the 24th century BC, the Egyptian tourism and antiquities ministry said. It was built for Yunmen, a high-ranking official whose duties included listening to the appeals of the kingdom's subjects and weighing their complaints before the state. Amr Al-Tayeb, director of the Saqqara archaeological site, told AFP that Yunmen's duties 'align with the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat', the goddess and principle of truth, justice and social order. The find was discovered during this summer's excavation season in the Mariette Cemetery area of northern Saqqara, as part of a long-running joint project by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. The newly discovered mastaba, a flat-roofed tomb typically built for elite officials, contains two funerary chapels: one for Yunmen and another for his father, Ity, a senior scribe responsible for overseeing agricultural lands and offerings. Yunmen's chapel is adorned with finely carved reliefs depicting farmers at work, servants carrying offerings and scenes associated with funerary rites. Many of the paintings have retained their original colors despite spending more than 40 centuries buried beneath the desert sands, the ministry said. Archaeologists also uncovered an ornate facade covered with funerary inscriptions, alongside formal depictions of the tomb owner. In the neighboring chapel, dedicated to Ity, traces of painted offering scenes survive, alongside a false door, a symbolic gateway through which the dead were believed to receive sustenance from the living. The discovery comes as Egypt seeks to promote new archaeological finds to support tourism, a key source of foreign currency for the country.