"Exceptionally well-preserved" tomb of ancient judge found in Egypt

An Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission has uncovered a 4,300-year-old tomb near Cairo belonging to an ancient judge and his father, local authorities said. The tomb was found at Saqqara, a sprawling necropolis south of the capital, and dates back to the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, one of the most influential rulers of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty who oversaw a period of administrative reform in the 24th century B.C., the Egyptian tourism and antiquities ministry said. It was built for Yunmen, a high-ranking official whose duties included listening to the appeals of the kingdom's subjects and weighing their complaints before the state. Amr al-Tayeb, director of the Saqqara archaeological site, told AFP that Yunmen's duties "align with the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat," the goddess and principle of truth, justice and social order. The find was discovered during this summer's excavation season in the Mariette Cemetery area of northern Saqqara, as part of a long-running joint project by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. The newly discovered mastaba, a flat-roofed tomb typically built for elite officials, contains two funerary chape...