Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities announced on Sept. 9 the discovery of a 4,300-year-old mastaba tomb at the Mariette Cemetery in Saqqara, about 20 miles south of Cairo. It belongs to Yunmen, a senior judge, and his father, Ity, a scribe who oversaw agricultural lands. The tomb dates to the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, roughly 150 years after the Great Pyramid was built.
The joint Egyptian-Spanish mission, led by Egypt's antiquities council and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, found two largely intact funerary chapels with vividly colored carved reliefs depicting farming scenes, offering processions and funerary rites. No date has been announced for public access to the tomb itself, but Saqqara's broader necropolis, including the Step Pyramid of Djoser, remains open daily to visitors.