Archaeologists Find 3,000-Year-Old Tomb of Paser at Luxor Necropolis

Egyptian authorities announced Sunday the discovery of a 3,000-year-old tomb belonging to an individual named Paser at the Theban necropolis in lower Sheikh Abd el-Qurna on Luxor’s West Bank. The burial site follows the standard layout of private tombs from the New Kingdom era, 1570–1069 BC.

It features an open courtyard that leads to a rock-hewn chapel in an inverted T-shape, with burial chambers cut below ground level.

A mudbrick bench for a funerary stela stands in the courtyard, along with a staircase flanked by ramps. Inscriptions inside the tomb show Paser worshiping gods in shrines and seated beside his wife before an offering table. Experts dated the tomb to the Ramesside period of the 19th and 20th dynasties on the basis of the artistic style.

The Dutch team from Leiden University conducted the work as part of excavations launched in 2018 that remain active. The courtyard also contains well-preserved elements such as a lining of milk bricks and a gap for fixing a funeral plaque. The Egyptian ministry of culture and antiquities stated that the monuments sit at the base of the mountain and already bear signs of prior flood damage.

Officials noted that the location leaves the structures highly exposed to flash flooding.