CAIRO, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that a 4,000-year-old offering chapel belonging to Ikhetnefert, the wife of the high priest Sabu, has been discovered at his tomb in Saqqara by researchers from the Czech Institute of Egyptology. The team members also explored the tomb of Ptahshepses, a 5th Dynasty official who was the son of Sabu and Ikhetnefert. Ptahshepses is known to have served four kings of the 5th Dynasty and to have married an Egyptian princess. The tombs in this area of the Saqqara necropolis were first explored in the nineteenth century by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, who founded the Egyptian Antiquities Service. He uncovered some 160 Old Kingdom tombs in the area, but left the work on these particular tombs incomplete. The new excavation has shown that Sabu’s tomb measured more than 175 feet long and 90 feet wide, and that it once stood about 16 feet tall. Hisham El-Leithy of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the tomb’s exterior walls featured elaborate decorations. Well-preserved reliefs depicting Sabu and Ptahshepses were found within Ikhetnefert’s offering chapel, which was not excavated by Mariette. The chapel also houses a false door bearing images of Ikhetnefert with her husband and their two sons, Ptahshepses and Raneferef. The nearby tomb of Ptahshepses also has an offering chamber and reliefs depicting processions and offerings. Although his burial chamber was looted in antiquity, a limestone sarcophagus containing human remains was discovered there. Examination of the remains suggests that Ptahshepses lived for more than 60 years. To read about the elaborately decorated chapel of an Egyptian royal tomb sculptor, go to “A Tomb of One’s Own.”
