Painted Coffins, a New Priest's Tomb and Thirty Cat Mummies: Egypt Unveils a Major Discovery at Luxor's Dra Abu el-Naga

Level 2 — Elementary

Luxor is a city in southern Egypt. Three and a half thousand years ago it was called Thebes, and it was the capital of the country. On the west bank of the Nile, near Luxor, there is a hill called Dra Abu el-Naga. Many noble people of old Egypt were buried there.

On May 14, 2026, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the German Archaeological Institute shared news of important new finds at the site. Inside a shaft in the courtyard of the tomb of a New Kingdom man named Baki, they discovered ten painted wooden coffins in very good condition.

Four of these coffins are from the Eighteenth Dynasty, more than 3,300 years ago. One of them belonged to Meret, a chantress, or singer, in the temple of Amun. Another coffin is from the Twenty-First Dynasty and belonged to a priest named Badi-Amun.

The team also discovered the tomb of a priest, named A-Shafi-Nakhtu, who has not been mentioned in any record before. In the same season they uncovered the burials of more than thirty cats, wrapped in linen, that date to the much later Ptolemaic period, between 305 and 30 BC, when Egypt was ruled by Greek kings.

Luxor: a city on the Nile in southern Egypt, near many ancient sites

Thebes: the ancient name of the city of Luxor, once the capital of Egypt

necropolis: a large old burial ground, often outside a city

noble: a person from a high-ranking, wealthy family

shaft: a deep narrow hole cut straight down into the ground or rock

dynasty: a line of rulers from one family that holds power for a long time

chantress: a woman who sang religious songs in an ancient Egyptian temple

Ptolemaic period: the time when a Greek dynasty descended from Ptolemy ruled Egypt, from 305 to 30 BC

Level 3 — Intermediate

On May 14, 2026, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, together with the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), announced the principal results of the eighth season of joint excavation at the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, opposite modern Luxor. The headline find is a previously unrecorded shaft cut into the open courtyard of the early Eighteenth-Dynasty tomb of an official named Baki, which proved on opening to contain ten well-preserved painted wooden coffins, plus an associated burial deposit of more than thirty mummified cats dated to the Ptolemaic period.

Preliminary epigraphic study has dated four of the coffins to the Eighteenth Dynasty, between roughly 1550 and 1295 BC. One belongs to a woman named Meret, identified by the inscriptions as a chantress of Amun — a regulated temple office reserved for women of priestly families. A further coffin is dated to the Twenty-First Dynasty, around 1069–945 BC, and belongs to a priest named Badi-Amun. The mission reads the deposit as a cache, where the coffins were relocated from their original tombs during the unsettled Late Period and hidden together in Baki's courtyard for protection.

The same season has also revealed the previously unrecorded tomb of a priest named A-Shafi-Nakhtu, described in his own inscriptions as a 'Purified Priest of the Temple of Amun'. The chapel preserves offering scenes and funerary texts on its painted walls, and gives onto a small burial chamber. None of the names recovered this year — Meret, Badi-Amun, A-Shafi-Nakhtu — appears in any extant historical record, and Egyptologists expect the new titles to extend significantly what is known about the Theban temple bureaucracy.

The cat-mummy deposit, recovered separately in the rubble layers immediately south of the Baki tomb, is dated to the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BC), when animal cults associated with the goddess Bastet drove a large industry in mummified feline votive offerings. More than thirty animals, large and small, were carefully wrapped in linen and tied with woven bands. The team is now sampling textiles, paints and bone collagen for chemical and radiocarbon dating to refine the chronological brackets and characterise the workshops responsible for the coffin paintings.

necropolis: a large ancient burial ground, often serving the population of a nearby city

epigraphic: relating to the study of ancient inscriptions cut or painted on objects and buildings

Eighteenth Dynasty: the first ruling family of the Egyptian New Kingdom, roughly 1550 to 1295 BC, including Tutankhamun and Hatshepsut

chantress: a female temple singer in ancient Egypt, an office often held by women of priestly families

cache: a deliberately hidden store of objects, here used for safe-keeping rather than burial

votive offering: an object placed in a sacred site as a gift to a god, often in fulfilment of a vow

Bastet: the ancient Egyptian goddess associated with cats, fertility and the home

radiocarbon dating: a scientific technique that measures the decay of carbon-14 to estimate the age of organic material

Level 4 — Advanced

On May 14, 2026, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Cairo Department) jointly announced the headline results of the eighth campaign of their concession at Dra Abu el-Naga, the major non-royal necropolis on the Theban west bank, opposite modern Luxor. The most striking element of the season is an unrecorded vertical shaft sunk into the open peristyle court of the early Eighteenth-Dynasty rock-cut tomb of an official named Baki, which yielded, in stratified deposit, ten polychrome wooden coffins of varying date plus, in a discrete fill layer further south, a separate burial of more than thirty linen-wrapped mummified cats.

Preliminary epigraphic and palaeographic analysis dates four of the coffins to the Eighteenth Dynasty, c. 1550–1295 BC, and identifies one of them as belonging to a woman called Meret, holder of the regulated temple office hemet-Amun — chantress of Amun — usually attested for daughters and wives of mid-rank priestly households. A further coffin lid is dated stylistically and through inscriptions to the Twenty-First Dynasty, c. 1069–945 BC, and bears the titles of a Badi-Amun designated 'Pure-Priest of the Temple of Amun-Re of Karnak'. The mission reads the assemblage as a secondary cache: coffins removed from their original burial chambers during the social instability of the early Third Intermediate Period and rehoused together inside the older Baki tomb-court for security. The pattern is structurally similar to the Royal Cache at TT320 / Deir el-Bahri and to the Bab el-Gusus priestly cache, but on a smaller, family-scale.

Separately, the season has documented the previously unrecorded chapel and burial shaft of a priest named A-Shafi-Nakhtu, styled in his own offering texts as a 'Purified Priest of the Temple of Amun' and active stylistically in the late New Kingdom horizon. None of the principal new names — Meret, Badi-Amun, A-Shafi-Nakhtu — appears in any extant prosopographic register of Theban priestly titles; Egyptologists at Bonn and Cairo expect the new attestations to refine, in particular, the female chantress hierarchy and the late-period lower-clergy organisation of the Karnak precinct.

The Ptolemaic-period cat-mummy deposit, recovered from rubble layers south of the Baki tomb, comprises animals of all age classes from kittens to adult breeders, wrapped in coarse linen and tied with patterned woven bands. The deposit fits the well-documented Egyptian votive industry organised around the cult of Bastet at Bubastis, Saqqara and Thebes during the final centuries BC. The team has initiated a multi-analyst conservation programme — pigment characterisation by Raman spectroscopy on the coffin paintings, AMS radiocarbon dating of linen fragments and selected bone collagen, and aDNA sampling on the felines — with publication of the campaign report targeted for the next Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo by mid-2027.

peristyle court: an open courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded walkway, common in monumental Egyptian architecture

palaeographic: relating to the study of the form, style and dating of ancient handwriting

Third Intermediate Period: the era of Egyptian history between the New Kingdom and the Late Period, roughly 1069–664 BC, marked by political fragmentation

secondary cache: a hiding place where artefacts have been moved from their original burial contexts and re-deposited together

TT320: the Theban Tomb in Deir el-Bahri where the royal mummy cache was discovered in 1881, sheltering many New Kingdom kings' bodies

prosopographic: concerning the systematic study of the careers and family connections of named individuals from a historical period

Raman spectroscopy: a non-destructive analytical technique that uses laser light to identify materials from their molecular vibrations

AMS radiocarbon dating: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon dating, a high-precision technique used on small organic samples

Level 1 — Absolute Beginner

Level 2 — Elementary

Level 3 — Intermediate

Level 4 — Advanced

Painted Coffins, a New Priest's Tomb and Thirty Cat Mummies: Egypt Unveils a Major Discovery at Luxor's Dra Abu el-Naga

Multiple Choice

True or False

Fill in the Blank