Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered a pyramid-shaped tomb from the Roman period, about 1,700 years old, at Bir Al-Shaghala in the Dakhla Oasis. Built of mud brick for the burial of a man and his wife, the tomb blends Egyptian, Greek and Roman elements.
A 14-step staircase leads to a sandstone entrance in Egyptian style, carved with hieroglyphic funerary spells and topped by a winged sun disk and two cobras. The lintel shows the seventh hour of the Amduat, one of ancient Egypt’s books of the afterlife, the first example of that hour found among the Bir Al-Shaghala tombs. A stone blocking the entrance bears an Osirian figure surrounded by protective spells.
The entrance opens onto a vaulted mud-brick hall. Two burial chambers lie to its right, beneath the pyramid-shaped structure. Part of the western roof has collapsed.
The most notable find is a 19-line funerary elegy written in red ink in Ancient Greek on a stele set into the pyramid’s south wall. It is dedicated to a man named Pisechtes, who preliminary studies suggest may have been a judge. It dates to the late third or early fourth century AD.
Excavators also found a sandstone offering table and purification basin, pottery vessels and a bronze coin bearing the image of Emperor Constantine. Evidence suggests the tomb was reused later, with a mud-brick chapel built above the entrance. Bir Al-Shaghala is part of the necropolis of Mothis, the oasis capital in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The Supreme Council of Antiquities has excavated there since 2002.
