Archaeologists Discovered a Funerary Complex Left Untouched for Nearly 4,000 Years

 Archaeologists Discovered a Funerary Complex Left Untouched for Nearly 4,000 Years

Popular Mechanics  March 4 2026

Finds from the site include necklaces, amulets, and cursive hieroglyphs inscribed on pots.

Along the west bank of the Nile near Aswan, Egypt, a series of rock-cut tombs have been holding centuries of history and artifacts. A renewed excavation at the Oubbet el-Hawa site has uncovered some of it, digging up a funerary complex with roots coinciding with the construction of the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom from 2686 to 2181 B.C.E.

While scouring the funerary shafts and chambers of the rocky outcropping, archaeologists discovered that the location was much more than an Old Kingdom burial plot, with plenty of evidence of reuse. First built during the age of the great pyramids, the site was then repurposed during the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom, showing the prominence Oubbet el-Hawa held for centuries. 

 Archaeologists Unearthed a 1,000-Year-Old Tomb Filled With Gold

 Remains of one person, likely a high status individual, lay at the center of the tomb, surrounded by the gold and other human remains.

Archaeologists have finally dug into a tomb first identified in Panama in 2009, and their excavation efforts have quite literally struck gold.

As crews excavated the archaeological site El Caño in the Coclé province of Panama, work inside the tomb dubbed Tomb 3 is expanding the known funerary record of the country’s central provinces between the eighth and 11^th centuries C.E. The team discovered that the complex structure was full of golden grave goods, including bracelets, ear ornaments, and pectoral plates. There were also plenty of elaborately decorated ceramics, some with iconography highlighting local artisan traditions. 

 The find, as revealed in a translated statement from the Panama Ministry of Culture, is now being called one of the most important pre-Hispanic cemeteries in the region. “We are ready to tell the world much more about our cultural wealth,” Maria Eugenia Herrera, Panama’s minister of culture, said in a statement.