A mystery sarcophagus found in the tomb of the overseer of works during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut was opened on the Theban necropolis last week. Nevine El-Aref was there It took 15 minutes -- while onlookers stood around on tenterhooks -- for archaeologists and workmen to lift the heavy lid off the perfectly-carved wooden anthropoid sarcophagus. We were in the open court of Djehuty's tomb at Draa Abul-Nagaa on Luxor's West Bank, and we could not take our eyes off the coffin, which featured the face of a woman wearing an earring. The sarcophagus was found last week by a Spanish mission working at the necropolis at Thebes. Journalists and Egyptologists had arrived to witness the opening of the coffin, hoping that an intact mummy would be revealed -- a relatively rare event. While trying to keep clear of the professional excavators, restorers and photographers, those not directly involved anxiously circulated around the action in search of a good vantage point from which to catch a first glimpse of what lay inside. It turned out, as hoped, to be an extremely well- preserved, linen-wrapped mummy. "An unknown woman! But there's no inscription," exclaimed a puzzled José Galàn, director of the Spanish mission, anxiously searching for some sort of identification. "It could be a member of Djehuty's family, or even a princess of the New Kingdom." We all pressed closer. The tomb of Djehuty had been accidentally chanced upon by the Spanish-Egyptian mission working in the Draa Abul-Nagaa area. Here well over 400 tombs are spread over a large area at the edge of the agricultural plain, from Deir Al-Medina in the south to Draa Abul-Nagaa in the north. All belong to officials who wielded power, to a greater or lesser extent, in the Old Kingdom, ranging from viziers and overseers of work to royal scribes and superintendents of the various departments of state. It was while cleaning the open court of Djehuty's tomb -- discovered and recorded by early archaeologists and subsequently filled with sand -- in an attempt to find its entrance that the team chanced upon the anthropoid coffin. "The face of a beautiful woman with black, inlaid eyes and dark eyebrows appeared out of the sand," Galàn said. "All the Egyptologists fell in love with her." Galàn said that their first impression on seeing the face on the coffin was that this was Djehuty. "But when we brushed off the sand it was clear that it was the face of a woman wearing an earring." The mummy has, understandably, aroused a great deal of speculation. "I do believe that it could be filled with scarabs and amulets," Zahi Hawass, secretary- general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said. He added that within the coming weeks it would be X-rayed for possible identification. The coffin was not the only object found buried under sand in the tomb's courtyard. Funerary objects bearing the name of Djehuty came to light, as well as those of the Pharaoh Ahmose and linen fragments bearing the cartouche of Amenhotep II. A wooden face of a young woman similar to the one carved on the sarcophagus was also discovered. "The debris was like a treasury full of objects from different dynasties; it was all mixed up together," said Mohamed El- Biali, head of Antiquities of Upper Egypt and at the same time supervising the Egyptian team, pointing to an alabaster fragment of a vase bearing the name of Ahmose -- founder of the 18th dynasty in 1567BC and the Pharaoh who, with his brother Kamose, fought to liberate Egypt from the hated Hyksos. "It reveals that Draa Abul-Nagaa was not only a cemetery for nobles and high ranking officials but that it could have been used as a royal necropolis for Pharaohs and queens of the 18th dynasty." "Djehuty's tomb is of both historical importance and artistic value," said culture minister Farouk Hosni. The tomb's walls are beautifully decorated with scenes featuring the annual pilgrimage to Abydos, hunting in the desert and in the marshes and funerary rituals. Hosni explained that the most noteworthy scene shows a harpist with two singers behind him; the lyrics of the song are engraved above the figures. This scene shows the beginning of a realism characteristic of the period, with the harpist depicted with a big round belly and hunches. The excitement generated by the discovery resounded all over the necropolis. There was enthusiastic discussion about a painted wooden tablet showing two figures, those of the deceased nobleman and Pharaoh Thutmosis III hunting ducks, their faces looking forward and not, as was usual in Pharaonic art, in profile. "This tablet is not the training sketch of an artist as some might think," said Mahmoud Mabrouk, art consultant to the SCA. He argues: "It is an executive drawing used as an artistic model with figures painted over a grid of 18 squares in order to adjust them to their canonical proportion and then to have the correct measurements for cutting the rock and sculpting the statues." Galàn described Djehuty as an important official who lived in the reign of Hatshepsut but who died in the reign of Thutmosis III. "That would explain why the names of both Pharaohs are written on the tomb wall, but the one of Hatshepsut is a little bit scratched." Djehuty would appear to have participated in the construction and decoration of most of Hatshepsut's monumental constructions in Thebes. Moreover, as overseer of the Treasury and "controller of all the revenues coming from all foreign lands", he would have been responsible for registering all the exotic products, including minerals and spices, brought from the land of Punt as shown on his tomb walls. "He was such an important official, that he is even represented on one of the walls of the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir Al- Bahari while carrying out such activities," Galàn said. During excavation of the tomb, eight mummies of falcons were unearthed, and a demotic graffito relating to them was found on one of the tomb walls. "This means that the tomb of Djehuty was reused in the Graeco-Roman era," Galàn added. While work was in progress around Djehuty's tomb, another was unearthed dating from the beginning of the 18th Dynasty. "It belongs to a man named Hery who was the supervisor of the Treasury of Queen Iya- hutep, the mother of Ahmose I, who died in the reign of Amenhotep I," El-Biali said. Up to now only a 25sqm base of a pyramidion has been found in Hery's tomb, which he explained was the superstructure of the tomb. "Both tombs were seen by early archaeologists, the French scholar [Jean- François] Champollion and the German scholar [Carl Richard] Lepsius," Hawass said. "But they were only interested in documenting some of their reliefs without bothering with the funerary collection." To protect both tombs from urban encroachment, possible flash floods or other unforeseen disasters, a large stone wall has been constructed around the tombs and the wooden roof, originally built in 1910 to cover the open court of the tomb, has been strengthened and consolidated.
