This Pharaoh Crashed Another King’s Tomb With His Own Afterlife Workforce

Archaeologists working in the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis have revealed a funerary mystery: hundreds of figurines with the name of an unexpected pharaoh.

A French archaeological mission headed by Sorbonne University’s Frédéric Payraudeau found 225 funerary statuettes of King Shoshenq III, but not in his tomb—in King Osorkon II’s. The finding confirms that the pharaoh expected quite the pampered afterlife and hints at a potential musical-chairs situation of ancient Egyptian tombs in Tanis, near the modern-day city of San el-Hagar.

Afterlife helpers

Funerary statuettes, known as ushabti, were meant to work at the behest of the gods in place of the deceased individual. The team found Shoshenq III’s ushabti and new inscriptions on the walls of the northern chamber of Osorkon II’s tomb, according to a social media post by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. They were in their original positions, in silt, and near a previously discovered granite coffin whose owner was still unknown.

Both Shoshenq III and Osorkon II were pharaohs from the 22nd Dynasty, which lasted from around 945 to 730 BCE during ancient Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period (around 1069 to 525 BCE), the last of three periods best known for disunity. In fact, Shoshenq III’s “reign was long but difficult, with a bloody dynastic war between kings of the North [himself] and two kings in the south [his cousins] of Egypt,†Payraudeau told Live Science. According to the ministry, Shoshenq III was one of the most important 22nd Dynasty kings and built many of Tanis’ most significant buildings.

Osorkon II’s tomb was already famous thanks to a collection of “treasures†known as the Tanis Treasures found in 1939, now at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. The archaeologists made the discovery while preparing for a conservation project.

Whose tomb is whose?

It is still not certain whether Shoshenq III was buried inside Osorkon II’s tomb or if his burial goods were moved there to keep them safe from theft, said Hisham Hussein, head of the Central Administration of Antiquities of the Maritime Region, as cited by the ministry’s post. However, Payraudeau told Live Science that “the presence of the shabtis near the anonymous sarcophagus and also inscriptions on the connected wall indicates clearly that [Shoshenq III] was buried here and not in his own tomb.â€

Yes, the man had his own tomb in Tanis, but some relics within it carry the name of Shoshenq IV, a ruler of the 23rd dynasty, according to Artnet. If Shoshenq IV wasn’t originally buried in Osorkon II, contrary to what Payraudeau says, the outlet posits whether Shoshenq IV might have moved him.

Moving forward, the team plans to study the newly discovered inscriptions. I, for one, would just like to point out that Mr. Shoshenq III didn’t plan for just a few helpers in the afterlife—he wanted (at least) 225.