Archaeologists in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis have uncovered a Roman-era tomb crowned by a pyramid-shaped mud-brick structure, revealing an unusual mixture of Egyptian funerary beliefs and Greek literary culture. Inside, the team found a 19-line poem written in ancient Greek, a rare scene from an Egyptian guide to the afterlife, and a bronze coin depicting Emperor Constantine.
The Egyptian archaeological mission made the discovery at Bir Al-Shaghala, part of the ancient necropolis of Mothis in Egypt’s Western Desert. According to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the tomb belonged to a man and his wife and dates to the Roman period. Its architecture and inscriptions preserve traditions that had survived in Egypt for centuries while also reflecting the cultural world of a society living under Roman rule.
Fourteen Steps Lead into an Egyptian-Style Tomb
Visitors to the tomb would have descended a staircase of 14 steps before reaching an entrance built from sandstone. Although the monument belongs to the Roman period, the people who constructed it deliberately drew on much older Egyptian funerary traditions.
The entrance carries carved hieroglyphic texts containing protective funerary spells and recitations. Above it sits an Egyptian-style cornice decorated with a winged sun disk flanked by two cobras, followed by an architectural element resembling a bundle of reeds.
Archaeologists found the doorway sealed by a stone slab decorated with Osirian imagery and surrounded by additional funerary spells. Beyond it lies a transverse mud-brick hall with a vaulted ceiling, part of which had collapsed on the western side. Two plastered mud-brick burial chambers occupy the right side of the hall.
Above these chambers rose the feature that gives the newly discovered monument its striking appearance: a pyramid-shaped mud-brick superstructure. Pyramid-topped funerary monuments were already known from Bir Al-Shaghala, so the shape itself is not unprecedented at the necropolis. What makes the new tomb particularly valuable is the combination of its architecture with the texts and imagery preserved around it.
The newly discovered Roman-era tomb at Bir Al-Shaghala in Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis. The mud-brick complex includes burial chambers beneath a pyramid-shaped upper structure. Credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
A Rare Scene Shows the Journey Through the Underworld
One of the most important discoveries appears on the upper lintel of the entrance. Here, the archaeologists identified a funerary scene representing the seventh hour of the Amduat, an ancient Egyptian composition describing the sun god’s nocturnal journey through the underworld.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities says this particular scene has now been documented at Bir Al-Shaghala for the first time. Additional inscriptions and images connected with the tomb’s occupants extend along both sides of the lintel.
The Amduat has much deeper roots than the Roman-period tomb. Its origins reach back to Egypt’s New Kingdom, more than a millennium before the burial at Bir Al-Shaghala. Its appearance here therefore illustrates the remarkable longevity of Egyptian ideas about death and rebirth.
For the people who entered this tomb, these ancient images apparently remained meaningful even in a world transformed by centuries of Persian, Greek, Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Yet another discovery inside the monument shows that Egyptian tradition represented only one part of their cultural landscape.
A 19-Line Greek Poem Remembers a Man Named Psychtis
Set into the southern wall of the pyramid-shaped structure, archaeologists discovered a rectangular stone funerary stele with a pedimented top. A sun disk carved in relief occupies its center, but the text beneath it uses a very different language.
Written in red ink across 19 lines is an ancient Greek funerary poem dedicated to a man named Psychtis. Preliminary study suggests that he may have served as a judge, although researchers have not yet established that identification conclusively.
The team dates the elegy to the late third or early fourth century AD. Its survival provides evidence not only about the individual commemorated in the tomb but also about literary culture in the Egyptian oases during the Roman period.
The juxtaposition is particularly striking. Egyptian funerary spells and imagery protected the entrance, while a Greek poem commemorated one of the dead. Rather than fitting neatly into a single cultural category, the tomb preserves different traditions that coexisted in Roman Egypt.
Archaeologists also recovered objects connected with burial and ritual activity. These include a sandstone offering table positioned above a purification basin made from the same material, several pottery vessels, and a bronze coin bearing the image of Roman Emperor Constantine.
A Pyramid Tomb in the Ancient Capital’s Necropolis
Bir Al-Shaghala belongs to the necropolis of Mothis, the capital of Dakhla Oasis during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The settlement corresponds to modern-day Mout, while the archaeological site’s present name comes from a local water well known as Bir Al-Shaghala.
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities began excavating the site in 2002. Successive campaigns have uncovered tombs with different architectural plans, including monuments that combine recognizably Egyptian forms with elements that developed during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.
Some feature open courtyards and staircases flanked by altars that may have served outdoor funerary rituals. Others include an upper funerary shrine topped by a pyramid-shaped structure.
Archaeologists have suggested that the character of these monuments may indicate that the necropolis served members of the elite living in the oasis capital.
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Several burial chambers also contain stone or pottery coffins beneath vaulted sandstone or mud-brick ceilings. Their walls preserve Egyptian Books of the Netherworld alongside Greek and Roman elements, placing the newly discovered tomb within a broader local tradition rather than making it an isolated curiosity.
The Tomb May Have Been Used Again
Evidence from the upper part of the monument suggests that its story did not end with its original occupants. Archaeologists identified a mud-brick chapel above the main entrance and a funerary shrine in front of it supported by four square mud-brick columns.
The excavation team believes these remains may indicate a later phase of reuse, although further study will be necessary to reconstruct exactly when and how that occurred. The combination of the architecture, Greek elegy, Egyptian religious texts and Roman-period finds already gives researchers an unusually layered picture of funerary life in Dakhla Oasis.
More than the pyramid-shaped monument alone, it is this coexistence of traditions that makes the discovery significant. A man remembered in Greek could enter the afterlife surrounded by Egyptian protective spells and imagery, while a Roman emperor appeared on a coin deposited within the same funerary landscape.
At Bir Al-Shaghala, those elements survived together in one tomb, preserving a glimpse of how people in a remote Egyptian oasis understood death, identity, and remembrance nearly 1,700 years ago.
