Archaeologists Enter a Hidden Luxor Chamber and Find 22 Painted Coffins of Amun’s Sacred Singers With 8 Sealed Papyri Untouched for Centuries

Key Points:

• Archaeologists discovered 22 painted wooden coffins of female Singers of Amun, along with eight sealed papyri, in a rock-cut chamber beneath the Luxor desert’s Asasif necropolis, dating to Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period (circa 1070-664 BCE).
• The burial chamber, carved into bedrock and arranged in ten horizontal rows, likely served as a secondary repository overseen by temple authorities, indicating a planned and systematic consolidation rather than an emergency reburial.
• The coffins emphasize the women's professional identity as Singers of Amun, highlighting the importance of religious office over personal lineage in their funerary practices during this era.
• The sealed papyri found in a ceramic vessel may provide valuable insights into temple administration, funerary rituals, or economic activities related to the Amun cult, with their preservation offering rare opportunities for textual and material analysis.
• Conservation efforts are underway to stabilize the fragile coffins, and ongoing excavations aim to locate the original tombs to better understand the social and ritual context of these temple women’s burials.