MINYA, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that two burial chambers dating to the Middle Kingdom period have been uncovered in Upper Egypt’s Beni Hassan necropolis by a team of Egyptian archaeologists and researchers from Maquarie University. Ayman Ashmawi, head of the Ministry of Antiquities’ Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department, said one of the chambers, located at the bottom of a ten-foot-deep shaft, belonged to an official named Rimushenty, and was probably emptied by British Egyptologist Percy E. Newberry sometime between 1893 and 1900. Pottery remained in the rooms to the east and west of Rimushenty’s main tomb chamber, however. Gamal El-Semestawi, General Director of Middle Egypt Antiquities, said the second chamber had the same design as the first, and it also contained pottery. This tomb had been decorated with well-preserved wall paintings dedicated to an official named Baqet II. The paintings will be cleaned and restored as the study continues. To read more about the elaborate tomb paintings at Beni Hassan, go to "Emblems of the Afterlife."
