Overview
- The French Mission at Tanis unveiled the assemblage in Paris on Dec. 5, describing it as the first in‑place set from a royal tomb at the site since 1946.
- A painted royal cartouche on the green faience ouchbetis names Sheshonq III, placing the burial in the 9th–8th centuries BCE.
- The team discovered the cache on Oct. 9 and spent ten days extracting 225 figurines arranged in a star pattern and horizontal rows beside a pink granite sarcophagus.
- More than half of the pieces depict women, with several overseers represented, an uncommon mix for funerary servants meant to work for the deceased in the afterlife.
- Conservation has begun with dessalement before study, and the objects are slated for the Cairo Museum as researchers examine why Sheshonq III appears interred in this smaller tomb rather than the larger monument bearing his name.