A Predynastic tomb full of precious artefacts has been found in Kom el Ahmar, Hieraconpolis, according to a recent announcement by the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities.

The tomb, excavated by the Hierakonpolis Expedition, a multi-national mission directed by Dr. Renée Friedman (Heagy Research Curator in the Dept. of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum), in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, dates back about 500 years before the reign of Narmer, the earliest relatively well-recorded ruler of Dynasty 1. It contained the mummified remains of a person who died in his late teens ( 17-20 years) and was accompanied with stone tools, weapons and a large number of ivory artefacts (such as a 32cm-high statuette of a bearded figure and 10 combs).

According to Dr. Friedman, the tomb’s rich contents are to give archaeologists insights to funerary rituals during the pre-Dynastic times.