Archaeologists in Egypt Discover a Mud-Brick Tomb Featuring a Heartbreaking Elegy to an Ancient Man's Father

The 19-line poem was inscribed on a stone slab in the Bir al-Shaghala necropolis. The lament “is a highly literary and original epigram,” a scholar says

Meilan Solly | Senior Associate Digital Editor, History

October 14, 2026 7:30 a.m.

Some 1,700 years ago, a married couple was buried in a pyramid-shaped tomb in the Dakhla Oasis, a fertile patch of land in Egypt’s Western Desert. The man, named Pisechtes, or Psychtis, may have been a judge—and if the ancient poem inscribed on his funerary stela is any indication, he was deeply mourned by his loved ones.

Angelos Chaniotis, a classicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus that the inscription, written on the stone slab in ancient Greek, describes Pisechtes as an “adviser in life” who was known for his kindness and wisdom. The elegy’s final lines find Pisechtes’ son Sarapion addressing him directly, proclaiming, “Listen, father!” Sarapion then “asks him to accept the funerary libations and offerings of lamenting children,” Chaniotis says.

Archaeologists with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities recently discovered Pisechtes’ mud-brick tomb while excavating the Bir al-Shaghala necropolis, a burial site for elite residents of the oasis’ ancient capital, Mothis. In addition to the stela, the grave boasts a sandstone offering table and purification basin, an assortment of pottery, and a bronze coin bearing the likeness of the Roman emperor Constantine.

Excavations at the necropolis have been ongoing since 2002. The finds reflect the region’s diverse blend of influences, from the famous pharaohs of the Egyptian New Kingdom to the Hellenistic legacy of ancient Greece to Egypt’s time as a Roman province, which began in 30 B.C.E. with the death of Cleopatra.

“The significance of the discovery lies in the tomb’s distinctive architectural elements, inscriptions and funerary texts, which provide important information about funerary practices and the cultural and religious life of the Dakhla Oasis during the Roman period,” says Hisham el-Leithy, the council’s secretary-general, in a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The tomb’s entrance is located at the bottom of a 14-step staircase. Crafted from sandstone, it’s adorned with hieroglyphic inscriptions intended to protect and guide the dead in the afterlife, as well as decorations such as a winged sun disc, two cobras and a carving shaped like a bundle of reeds.

The beam above the door features a scene from the seventh hour of the Amduat, a New Kingdom funerary text that records the Egyptian sun god Ra’s journey through the underworld. According to the Royal Collection Trust, this section finds Ra facing “the most terrifying being of the netherworld: Apophis, the great serpent blocking his passage,” an embodiment of “chaos and evil.” Per the statement, the depiction is the first of its kind uncovered at Bir al-Shaghala.

Inside the tomb, a hall with a partially collapsed vaulted ceiling stands next to a pair of mud-brick burial chambers topped by the pyramid-shaped upper section. As for Pisechtes’ stela, the researchers found the slab embedded in the structure’s southern wall.

The 19-line poem inscribed on the object “is a highly literary and original epigram,” says Chaniotis, who wasn’t involved in the recent excavations. “An interesting feature of the inscription is the use of diacritical marks” like accents, which testify to the author’s “high level of education.” As the statement notes, the elegy dates to the late third or early fourth century C.E.; it “provides important evidence of the flourishing literary and cultural life of the oases” during this era.

Many of the tombs found at the site feature pyramid-shaped upper sections, in line with the newly discovered burial. According to a 2020 article published in the journal Varia, the necropolis’ tombs tend to include “three constant architectural components: … an open-air court, a ground floor with masonry-vaulted rooms, and a second story with a pyramid and a chapel.” This design has rarely been observed elsewhere in Roman Egypt.

Pisechtes’ tomb may have been reused after his death. Per the statement, the top section of the burial includes a mud-brick chapel with a four-columned funerary shrine that appears to date to a later period.

Dakhla’s population likely reached its peak under Roman rule. “The first to third centuries saw activity on an unprecedented scale in Dakhla,” Colin Hope, an archaeologist at Australia’s Monash University, told the Art Newspaper’s Garry Shaw in July, when the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of a separate 1,600-year-old settlement in the oasis.

“In the fourth century,” Hope added, “the amount of activity may have declined, but there were still many sites then and in the following centuries.”