A 3,000-year-old tomb of an ancient Egyptian official named Paser has surfaced at Luxor’s Sheikh Abd El-Qurna necropolis, unearthed by a Dutch archaeological mission from Leiden University. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the find Sunday, framing the painted burial chamber as the latest draw for the West Bank’s tourism trade. Paser’s name appears on decorated walls inside, the council said, and specialists believe the monument dates to the Ramesside period, which spans the 19th and 20th dynasties of the New Kingdom.
The find closes out another season for the Dutch team working the lower sector of the Theban hillside. Inside the chapel, more inscriptions partly concealed under a thin layer of soil may yet name additional occupants of the tomb, the mission said.
The Tombs Keep Coming Out of Sheikh Abd El-Qurna
Sheikh Abd El-Qurna has been producing decorated tombs since the early 19th century, when Egypt’s first modern expeditions mapped the Theban hillside. The lower part of the necropolis had been less studied for almost a century before the Leiden project opened its current focus there in 2018. Egypt’s antiquities ministry opened the lower sector to long-term foreign missions as part of a broader push to map and conserve tombs before they deteriorate further.
Ahram Online reported that the new tomb “is located to the east of Theban Tomb 45 (TT45), within an area that has been the focus of a long-term research project combining archaeological investigation with preventive conservation and risk management.” The neighborhood has produced a steady drumbeat of painted monuments since foreign archaeological teams returned to the West Bank. The long-term sector research plan frames each new find as part of a wider study of the lower hillside. That pattern keeps the lower sector stocked with work for the next several seasons.
Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna has been, in the mission’s framing, “the focus of a long-term research project” running eight consecutive excavation seasons. The same project aims to produce the first comprehensive archaeological study of the lower sector, a stretch of the hillside that had been mapped only thinly since the 1960s.
The find is the latest high-profile occupant to surface in the current campaign. The news follows the reopening of a pharaonic tomb near Luxor last year after more than 20 years of renovation, a release Egyptian authorities flagged at the time. Earlier this year, in the northern Beheira province near the Mediterranean coast, archaeologists reported artifacts from a Greco-Roman cemetery dating back more than 2,300 years.
What’s Inside Paser’s Burial Place
The monument follows the template of a private Theban tomb laid out on the West Bank some three millennia ago. A forecourt leads to a rock-cut chapel with an inverted T-shaped plan, and burial chambers have been carved beneath the chapel floor. Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, described the layout as “the traditional layout of a New Kingdom elite private tomb, comprising an open forecourt leading to a rock-cut chapel, beneath which lie underground burial chambers.” Mudbrick walls built into the forecourt have survived in unusually good condition for the era.
- Mudbrick bench with a central niche intended for a funerary stela
- Staircase flanked by sloping ramps leading to the tomb’s entrance
- Mudbrick walls standing to original height in places around the forecourt
- Inverted T-shaped chapel plan cut into the bedrock behind the courtyard
Inside the chapel, the most striking finds are the painted walls. Inscriptions name Paser as the tomb’s owner, per Egypt’s ministry announcement on Paser’s tomb, and archaeologists found him depicted worshipping various deities inside shrine settings, as well as seated with his wife before an offering table.
The paired offering-table scene carries ritual weight. In New Kingdom art, such images served as magical substitutes for the real thing, providing the deceased with an eternal supply of food and drink. Parts of the painted decoration remain concealed beneath a thin layer of accumulated soil, the mission said, leaving more of the chapel’s iconography to be uncovered in later seasons. Abdel Badie said the team has begun clearing that soil in measured sections, not in a single sweep, to keep the painted plaster stable as it comes back into open air.
A Find Cut From the New Kingdom Template
The monument dates to the Ramesside period of the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE), a stretch that ended with the 20th dynasty. Specialists date the find to that period based on the artistic style of its inscriptions, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said.
The wider context within the New Kingdom is also fixed. The Ramesside period covers the 19th and 20th dynasties, the council added. The find lands late in that span, in a phase that generated most of the painted private tombs that keep surfacing on Luxor’s West Bank. The same hillside houses the sector where the Dutch mission has worked since 2018.
Quick facts:
- Tomb age: roughly 3,000 years
- New Kingdom span as Egypt dates it: 1570-1069 BCE
- Ramesside period: 19th and 20th dynasties of the New Kingdom
- Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna project: running since 2018
The find fits the typical painted private tomb of that era, the council’s announcement said, with shrines and offering scenes done in the standard register. The architecture at the cemetery had been refined over centuries by the time the tomb was laid to rest, with chapel layouts standardizing into the inverted-T form Abdel Badie described. Carving the chapel into the hillside and decorating it with painted scenes of worship and offering was the standard New Kingdom pattern for any official who could afford it.
Each new find at the West Bank triggers a familiar announcement sequence. The ministry describes the layout. The council secretary-general quotes the inscriptions. Foreign team directors describe the next phase of work. Inside the lower sector, that sequence has been the rhythm of the past eight excavation seasons. The new tomb follows that pattern with the same officials quoted and the same phase-of-work description.
The Dutch Mission Behind the Find
The find was made by the Dutch Archaeological Expedition to the Theban Necropolis, a mission of Leiden University running in cooperation with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. It is directed by Carina van den Hoven. Van den Hoven has directed archaeological research at the site since 2018, per the council’s announcement. The mission’s current excavation season is its eighth consecutive.
The team will continue documenting and studying the tomb to identify those buried within it and reconstruct their identities.
Hisham El-Leithy, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the council’s Sunday statement.
Van den Hoven’s plan for the next research phase, set out in the project’s announcement on the Ramesside find, focuses on structural stabilization, conservation, and the restoration of the painted decoration. That mix keeps the Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna sector from being worked as a one-off dig.
The broader project also aims to produce the first comprehensive archaeological study of the lower hillside. That area had been mapped thinly for decades, the mission added, and the campaign treats each new find as part of a stocktaking exercise for the surrounding tombs alongside its own research agenda.
Egypt’s Push to Translate Archaeology into Tourism
Egypt’s tourism ministry has framed the find as part of its ongoing pitch for archaeological tourism. CBS News reported Sunday that the discovery “comes as Egypt seeks to promote new archaeological finds to support tourism,” a key source of foreign currency for the country. A large tomb belonging to a pharaoh was reopened to visitors near Luxor last year after more than 20 years of renovation, featuring paintings of Amenhotep III, who ruled ancient Egypt between 1390 B.C. and 1350 B.C.
Earlier this year in the northern Beheira province, near the Mediterranean coast, archaeologists reported artifacts from a Greco-Roman cemetery dating back more than 2,300 years. Foreign-currency earnings from tourism are a recurring pressure point in Cairo’s economic planning, and the ministry has worked the West Bank discoveries into its broader pitch. The tomb will not open to visitors this season, the council’s announcement suggested, since painted surfaces still need conservation.
Stabilization Before the Paintings Are Fully Exposed
Van den Hoven said the mission’s next phase will focus on structural stabilization, conservation, and the restoration of the painted decoration, per the mission’s plan. The soil layer that protected the wall scenes for three millennia will come off in measured sections. Researchers have not committed to a timeline for opening the chamber.
Continued work at the site would lead to further discoveries and contribute to a more complete understanding of one of the Theban Necropolis’ most important burial areas.
Carina van den Hoven, the mission’s director, told Ahram Online that the Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna sector still has more to give.
The bulk of the work ahead is conservation, not excavation. The thin layer of soil that has protected the painted plaster for three millennia will come off in measured sections. Restoration is meant to bring the wall scenes back to legible color without repainting them. The team has not said when or whether the tomb will open to visitors. The wider campaign also runs alongside separate Egyptian archaeology work, including an inscribed Egyptian tax jar from Tel Azekah that captured Egyptian administration across the eastern Mediterranean.
Scholarship as much as conservation drives the next research seasons. The mission’s broader project, the first comprehensive study of Lower Sheikh Abd El-Qurna, will continue in parallel with the new tomb’s conservation work. The tomb’s owner may yet shift from a name on a chapel wall into a documented individual in Egypt’s late New Kingdom records.
