3,000-Year-Old Pyramid Of Pharaoh’s Adviser Discovered In Luxor

RT News February 21 2013

Reuters / Asmaa Waguih

An ancient Egyptian pyramid dating back more than 3,000 years has been discovered in the city of Luxor. The monument was built for an adviser to King Ramses II’s vizier Khay.

The remains were unearthed during excavations on the hill of Sheikh Abdel Qurna, by the Belgian archaeological mission from the Free University of Brussels and Liege.

The mud-brick pyramid, whose original height was 15 meters, comes with quite a history.

“Stamp impressions on the bricks indicate that the pyramid belongs to a vizier of Upper and Lower Egypt named Khay, who held this charge for 15 years during the reign of pharaoh Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) in the 19th dynasty,” the mission said in a Wednesday statement.

The pyramid is engraved with an ancient Egyptian scene depicting the god Ra-Hurakhti.

“The monument was largely dismantled in the 7th and 8th century AD, when the tomb was transformed into a Coptic hermitage,” it said.

The discovery is believed to be of major importance “since the vizier Khay was known to Egyptologists by a large number of documents but the location of his tomb remained undiscovered,” the mission said.

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