For historic Egyptians, the afterlife—additionally known as Duat, amongst different names—was a mystical realm overseen by the god Osiris, who personified rebirth and life after demise. However entry to Duat was something however assured; when an individual died, their spirit traveled throughout huge, difficult terrain and deposited them on the Corridor of Remaining Judgment, the place their coronary heart was weighed towards a feather from Ma’at, the goddess of justice and fact.
In preparation for the afterlife, royals, dignitaries, and the rich elite constructed nice tombs. Essentially the most elaborate amongst them have been painted with decorative murals that shared one’s accomplishments, filled with paintings and riches to show every particular person’s standing and accompany them to Duat.
Expansive historic necropolises complemented giant cities, the place society’s higher crust commissioned tombs, temples, and pyramids. For the capital of Memphis, the ultimate resting place was usually Saqqara, which accommodates a few of Egypt’s oldest monuments, a few of which date again to the First Dynasty round 5,000 years in the past.
Students proceed to unfurl millennia-old mysteries as archaeological excavations keep it up in Saqqara. And typically, as researchers from the Mission Archéologique Franco-Suisse de Saqqâra (MAFS) not too long ago discovered, marvelous and surprising discoveries nonetheless emerge from the sand.
Through the 2024 season, because the staff excavated close to a mastaba—a large-scale, rectangular, flat-roofed tomb—they found a variety of smaller burials, together with a “kiln” tomb. Also called “oven” tombs, these burials are “made of raw bricks that are characterized by their vaulted ceiling,” says an announcement from MAFS. “They are built several meters below the ground, and the only way to access them is through the burial shaft, always placed to the north of the entrance.”
Usually, kiln tombs are “fairly simple mud brick monuments, sometimes with limestone walls, and even less often decorations,” MAFS says. At present, they’re additionally usually empty because of looting all through the centuries. However as a substitute of a primary, unadorned room, the staff discovered vibrant wall work commemorating a physician who died round 4,000 years in the past.
Archaeologists uncovered a stone pill bearing the physician’s identify, Tetinebefou, close to the doorway. A stele is a stone slab that includes textual content, imagery, or each, and in historic Egypt, a false door stele represented a portal for the deceased’s spirit cross via into the afterlife. As researchers explored farther, the doctor’s identify was represented in different areas, confirming it to be his tomb.
As reported in Reside Science, Tetinebefou was often called a “dean of the palace physicians,” with inscriptions referring to him additionally as “conjurer of the goddess Serqet,” who was related to safety from scorpion stings. He was additionally prescribed the titles of “director of medicinal plants” and “chief dentist,” each of that are uncommon designations in historic Egypt. It’s unclear which pharaoh he could have served, however MAFS’s lead Egyptologist Phillippe Collombert suggests Tetinebefou could have labored below Pepi II, who reigned between roughly 2246 and 2152 B.C.E.
Contained in the tomb, reduction carvings of urns, furnishings, hieroglyphs, and clothes are complemented by colourful patterns and richly textured ceiling. In some unspecified time in the future prior to now, the physician’s tomb had certainly been looted, and solely tiny fragments of objects remained. The decorations, nonetheless, mark an distinctive discovery.
A documentary slated for 2026, directed by Frédéric Wilner, will take a deeper dive into the main points of this excavation. Within the meantime, discover extra on the MAFS web site.
