Overview
- The French-led Tanis mission, working with Egypt’s archaeology ministry, presented in Paris 225 ouchebtis recovered in October from a royal tomb at the Nile Delta site.
- The green faience figures were found in situ beside a large pink granite sarcophagus, carefully arranged around a trapezoidal pit, and required ten days for extraction.
- Royal cartouches on the statuettes name Sheshonq III, who ruled around 830–791 BCE, resolving the identity of the sarcophagus’s occupant.
- Researchers describe the find as unprecedented at Tanis since 1946, noting depictions of team leaders and an unusually high proportion of female figures.
- The context raises new questions because another tomb and the site’s largest sarcophagus also bear Sheshonq III’s name, which scholars are investigating as the assemblage is studied for transfer to Cairo.