Burial chamber discovered in Asasif on Luxor's west bank, page 1

The burial chamber and sarcophagus of a 25th Dynasty Thebes Mayor has been discovered

During excavation and cleaning work carried out in the tomb of the 25th Dynasty Thebes Mayor Karabasken in south Asasif, on Luxor's west bank, the Egyptian American South Asasif Conservation Project discovered his burial chamber and sarcophagus.
“The sarcophagus is a unique example of Ku#e sarcophagi in an elite tomb,” Mahmoud Affifi, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Ministry of Antiquities told Ahram Online, adding that the sarcophagus is carved in plain red granite and does not bear any engravings or paintings.

Elena Pischikova, director of the archaeological mission, explained that the burial chamber was found accidently during excavation work carried out in a room of the tomb

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Poor old Karabasken didn't get treated with much respect in the centuries that followed his death. In life, he held many titles -- Prophet of Khonsemweset-Neferhotep, Fourth Priest of Amun – Mayor of the City – 25th Dynasty (about 730 BC). He was placed in a tomb in Thebes (modern Luxor) that Egyptologists designate TT391 (i.e. "Theban Tomb #391")

Karabasken's home city (Thebes) was the capital of Upper Egypt, situated on the Nile about 800 miles from Cairo and near the area of that they called Nubia. This is the place of the famous Valley of the Kings where Tut was buried and the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut and the great temple of Amun-Re at Karnak.

Although they knew the location of this tomb many years, it was dismissed as being "unimpressive" and less worthy of researchers' efforts than other better-preserved tombs. It was robbed in antiquity, frequently flooded, and was eventually turned into a house and stable for a family. Any decoration on the wall was replaced with more modern decoration (and with graffiti) and doors were broken. To add to the mess, the floods had left a thick layer of sediment 10-12 feet deep on the floors. Repair and investigation of such a damaged tomb was actually rather low on the list of investigations and when they did finally get around to doing test trenches and so forth, the poor quality of the bedrock hindered them and they found evidence that some areas of the tomb were unfinished..

(unfinished sections are NOT unusual. If the tomb owner died during construction, they didn't finish the tomb. They simply left it as it was on the day he died and r elatives moved in the grave goods and so forth and then sealed the tomb.)

Dr Elena Pischikova started the excavations after 2004, not expecting much out of this other than perhaps some data about how this type of tomb was constructed. And yet, the tomb offered some surprises - a nice portrait in Old Kingdom style of Karabasken when they cleared the floor, they found an access area into a lower chamber which contained the sarcophagus of Karabasken. Floods had damaged this chamber and they're proceeding carefully. The sarcophagus might still hold some grave goods or pieces of the original coffin.

I found a charming blog entry of a visit to this tomb in 2014.

edit on 25-8-2016 by Byrd because: (no reason given)