Relics are constantly being found across the region once ruled by the Ancient Egyptians.
Things like doors to unknown worlds, canopic jars, little stone servants known as shabti — the list goes on.
For thousands of years, the fertile Nile Delta has been occupied by myriad civilisations, perhaps best known is the period in which the likes of Djoser, Khufu, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramses II — all great pharaohs — ruled.
While many tombs across Egypt have been found, much of them broken into by ancient tomb raiders, archaeologists often find new and unexplored tombs and passages otherwise hidden.
This included the recent discovery of a royal necropolis located in the desert on the West Bank of the Nile, some 40 kilometres from Cairo.
Made in 2020, a number of artefacts were found inside the tomb, alongside a large coffin, all of which were explored during the Smithsonian Channel’s documentary ‘Mystery of the Lost Pyramid’.
Researchers initially believed the place of rest to belong to a great king given the fact that it was found inside a pyramid.
Such grand structures were reserved for Egypt’s greats, and so Egyptologist Dr Yasmin El Shazly and her team believed they had stumbled upon something quite special.
Piecing together fragments of wood that were found in the burial chamber, the tea, eventually formed a coffin lid with a carved face.
“Coffins normally had features similar to the owner,” said Dr Shazly. “But they were idealised, because that’s what they would look like for eternity.”
Soon, the team realised not only had they stumbled on something special, but something they hadn’t imagined in their wildest dreams.
As the narrator noted: “The restoration has revealed something astonishing: this isn’t a king: It is, in fact, a mystery woman.”
The item of clothing depicted on the person craved into the coffin was popular among women during Ancient Egypt, a piece known as a Hathor wig.
When researchers tried to decode the hieroglyphs etched into the coffin, the poor condition hampered their work.
“What’s extremely important about this chest is that we know that it belonged to a princess because here it says: ‘Daughter of the King,'” said Dr Shazly.
Her name, then, remains a mystery, just like the reason behind why she was laid to rest in a king’s tomb.
Professor Aidan Dodson from the University of Bristol said: “This kind of pyramid design is specific to a king. It’s not what you’d expect a junior member of the royal family to be in.
“Normally a princess would simply have a shaft tomb and a chamber at the bottom of it, which makes the whole thing a real mystery.”
