A tomb belonging to a pyramid-age official has been uncovered at Saqqara, the sprawling necropolis south of modern Cairo, according to Live Science. The burial belonged to a man who held the title of the king's 'keeper of secrets', a role placing him among the trusted senior figures of the royal court.
Saqqara served the ancient city of Memphis as a burial ground for thousands of years, and it remains one of the most productive archaeological sites in Egypt. The area is best known for the Step Pyramid of Djoser, but the wider necropolis also holds the tombs of many officials who served the pharaohs during the age when Egypt's great pyramids were built. The newly reported tomb belonged to one such figure, whose duties brought him into close contact with the palace and its confidential affairs.
Titles of this kind were common among high-ranking administrators of the Old Kingdom. To be described as the person who kept the king's secrets signalled a position of considerable status and personal trust, and such labels were carved and painted into the walls of the tombs where these officials were laid to rest. The discovery at Saqqara adds another name and career to the record of the men who ran the machinery of the Egyptian state during the pyramid age.
Saqqara has produced a steady run of finds in recent years, from painted burial chambers to shafts packed with coffins, and continues to reward the teams working across its many burial fields. Each newly opened tomb offers fresh detail about the beliefs, professions and family connections of the people interred there, and about how the necropolis grew and was reused over the centuries.
Egyptologists rely heavily on the inscriptions inside such tombs to identify their owners. The offering formulae, titles and names written on tomb walls are usually the first clue to who was buried within and what role they played in life. Readers curious about how those inscriptions work, and how a title or a name is picked out from a wall of signs, can learn to read hieroglyphs for themselves with the Hierolyte app. Full details of the tomb and its owner are reported by Live Science.