Egypt has unveiled the 4,300-year-old tomb of a Fifth Dynasty nobleman adorned with colourful reliefs and well preserved inscriptions a month after being discovered.
The tomb is located south of Saqqara, a vast necropolis south of Cairo, and belongs to a senior official named Khuwy.
Flanked by dozens of ambassadors, antiquities minister Khaled al-Enani said that the tomb was found last month
It is mostly made of white limestone bricks and is adorned with ornate paintings that contain a special green resin and oils used in the burial process.
Mohamed Megahed, the excavation team's head, said:'The L-shaped Khuwy tomb starts with a small corridor heading downwards into an antechamber and from there a larger chamber with painted reliefs depicting the tomb owner sitting at an offerings table.'
It has not been confirmed what the other pictures in the tomb depict.
The tomb's north wall indicates that its design was inspired by the architectural blueprint of the dynasty's royal pyramids, Mr Megahed added.
The excavation team has unearthed several tombs related to the Fifth Dynasty.
Egypt has in recent years sought to promote archaeological discoveries across the country in a bid to revive tourism that took a hit from the turmoil that followed its 2011 uprising.
Last week, British engineers completed a £7 million ($9 million) restoration project on Egypt's oldest pyramid that is also located in Saqqara.
The step pyramid, known as the Pyramid of Djoser, was built in 2,700 BC for the third dynasty Pharaoh Djoser.
The six-step pyramid is thought to be the country's earliest colossal stone structure and mummified remains were recovered at the site in the 1930s.
It had been under risk of collapse, after a 1992 earthquake that the pyramid walls crumbling and the burial chamber partially collapsed.
World Heritage and the Egyptian Government hired Newport, South Wales, based firm Cintec to repair the damage to the pyramid back in 2010.
Cintec has repaired bridges, mosques and pyramids worldwide, and has worked on some of the world's most famous buildings and structures, such as Buckingham Palace, The Statue of Liberty and the White House.
Giant air bags were used to help support the monument while engineers stitched the stone structure back together using steel rods.
'The Step Pyramid project was of particular importance to us as the entire structure could have been destroyed at any point, due to the damage on the ceiling and roof caused by the earthquake,’ Cintec Managing Director Peter James said.
The air bags used by the engineering firm to temporarily support the ceiling allowed repairs to the crumbling structure of the 196 foot (60 metre) high pyramid to be undertaken.
The restoration work exposed the pyramid's sarcophagus - once the resting place of the mummy of the Pharoah Djoser - which had been completely buried when the ceiling collapsed
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