A group of Egyptologists from Spain have discovered two tombs that housed almost 60 mummies at site in the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor.

An exterior view of the tomb of vizier Amenhotep Huy where almost 60 mummies have been unearthed by Spanish Egyptologists.

“The most important thing this year is the discovery of two tombs, almost six meters deep,” made up of “two chambers each and housing around 60 mummies and remains of mummies,” Francisco J. Martin, the president of the Vizier Amenhotep Huy Project, told Efe.

Martín, who leads a team of 22 Spanish Egyptologists and eight Egyptian experts, said the tombs were dated after Vizier Amenhotep-Huy’s tomb (18th dynasty).

The site is a rich example of the architectural style and “evidence that the vizier’s tomb at some point became a necropolis,” the expert added.

The two secondary tombs are connected via two burial chambers and are characterized by a lack of epigraphs that were found in Vizier Amenhotep Huy’s tomb, which is a chapel that contains 30 columns with epigraphs, according to Martín.

“They began to build other tombs from different dynasties within the vizier’s tomb, since the place was sacred,” Martín continued from the mission’s headquarters in the southern city of Luxor. “It is a very rich site and we are discovering many things.”

Amenhotep Huy was vizier to pharaoh Amenhotep III during the last third of his reign.

He was originally from northern Egypt and was considered the “opposition leader” amid new religious trends promoted by Akhenaten, the Pharaoh’s son and heir.

“He is a very important person,” Martín added.

Teresa Bedman, co-director of the project, told Efe that, so far, all mummies buried in the area “were senior officials of the clergy of Amun of Thebes.”

Because the bodies were mummified, experts can be sure they belonged to “higher social classes,” according to Bedman.

Once the vizier died and was martyred, his burial site became a prestigious one where many others wanted to be buried: “a necropolis inside the vizier’s tomb,” Bedman added.

The Spanish mission has launched an exhibition of the contents of the vizier’s necropolis with the Luxor museum which will continue into 2023.