A Hidden Tomb Is Uncovered in Egypt

Archeologists reported the discovery of three coffins and a remarkably well-preserved mummy Wednesday in a 2,500-year-old tomb discovered by accident behind a statue in a separate burial chamber.

An Australian team was exploring a much older tomb -- dating back 4,200 years -- belonging to a man believed to have been a tutor to the 6th Dynasty King Pepi II, when they moved a pair of statues and discovered a secret door, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s top antiquities official.

Inside, they found a tomb from the 26th Dynasty with three intricate coffins, each with a mummy.

“Inside one coffin was maybe one of the best mummies ever preserved,” Hawass told reporters at the excavation site in the cemetery of Saqqara, about 15 miles south of Cairo.

“The chest of the mummy is covered with beads. Most of the mummies of this period -- about 500 BC -- the beads are completely gone, but this mummy has them all,” he said, standing over one of the mummies that was swathed in turquoise blue beads and bound in strips of black linen.

The identities of the mummies have not been determined, but the tomb is thought to be that of a middle-class official.

The door was hidden behind 4,200-year-old statues of a man believed to have been Meri, the tutor of Pepi II, and Meri’s wife, whose name was not revealed.

According to tradition, Pepi II -- the last ruler of the 6th Dynasty -- ruled from 2278 to 2184 BC, one of the longest reigns in ancient Egyptian history.

Naguib Kanawati, the head of the Australian team from Sydney’s Macquarie University, said the site had fallen into neglect after Pepi II’s rule, until it was used again as a cemetery 2,600 years later.