*** Welcome to piglix ***

Iufaa


Iufaa was an Egyptian priest and administer of palaces who lived around 500 BC. His mummy was discovered in an unmolested tomb by Czech archaeologists under the direction of Ladislav Bareš and Miroslav Verner in February 1998. The discovery of an unmolested Egyptian tomb of this significance is a very rare occurrence. The mummy was in a state of advanced decomposition due to the proximity of the water table, however many of the tomb's artifacts were in good condition.

In 1994, a team of archaeologists from the Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague began investigating a second large shaft tomb at Abusir in Egypt. In 1996, they located a burial chamber at the bottom of the shaft, 80 feet (20 m) below the desert. As they excavated they found tunnels that had been previously built by looters; these tunnels ended a few meters (yards) above the burial chamber. The shaft had been built through weak, brittle clay, and the team took the precaution of building a protective roof of reinforced concrete over the burial chamber to prevent a collapse of the shaft. The tomb and its vaulted roof were created from white limestone blocks, and a white limestone sarcophagus almost filled the chamber. The contents of the tomb were intact, making this the first unrobbed shaft tomb found in Egypt since 1941. The researchers dated the tomb to the late 26th dynasty (before 525 BC).

The sarcophagus was surrounded by 408 ushabtis, symbolizing servants for the dead, and the tomb also contained stone vessels, wooden furniture, pottery, and papyri scrolls. Some of the pottery had been imported from the Aegean. The walls of the tomb were covered with texts from the Book of the Dead, and inscriptions in the tomb identified the man buried as Iufaa, a high-ranking priest and palace official.


...
Wikipedia

...