CAIRO: Spanish archaeologists have discovered a millennia-old mummy in “very good condition” near the southern Egyptian town of Luxor, the antiquities ministry said on Sunday.

The find was in a tomb probably dating from between 1075-664 BC, on the west bank of the River Nile, 700 kms south of Cairo, a statement said. The mummy had been bound with linen stuck together with plaster.

It was in a brightly coloured wooden sarcophagus and had been buried near a temple from the era of fourth-millennium warrior king Thutmose III.

The tomb was likely to have belonged to a nobleman, Amenrenef, who was “a servant of the royal household”, the ministry said.

The archaeological team’s head, Myriam Seco Alvarez, said the mummy was decorated with “many colourful decorations recalling religious symbols from ancient Egypt, such as the goddesses Isis and Nephtys displaying their wings, and the four sons of Horus”.

The earliest evidence of mummification in Egypt suggests that the practice of wrapping bodies to preserve them after death dates back as far as 4500 BC.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2016