Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a Roman-era tomb containing a 19-line Greek inscription honoring a man who may have served as a judge, according to the country’s antiquities authorities. The text, written in red ink on a stone funerary stele, was found at the Bir Al-Shaghala necropolis in the Dakhla Oasis. Researchers date the inscription to the late third or early fourth century A.D.
The poem commemorates a man whose name has been rendered in reports as “Pisechtes” or “Pisechthis.” Preliminary study suggests he may have held a judicial position, although officials have not released his exact title or the full Greek text. The stele was fixed into the southern wall of the tomb’s pyramidal section and has a triangular top with a raised sun disk.
The tomb was built mainly from mudbrick and was intended for a man and his wife. A staircase of 14 steps leads to a sandstone entrance decorated with hieroglyphic funerary texts.
Greek inscription offers clues to a judge in Roman Egypt
Above the doorway is a winged sun disk flanked by two cobras. A stone blocking slab carries an image of Osiris and protective spells. Archaeologists also identified a scene on the lintel from the seventh hour of the “Amduat,” an ancient Egyptian funerary text describing the sun god’s nighttime journey through the underworld.
A Roman-era tomb in Egypt has revealed a 19-line Greek inscription commemorating a man researchers believe may have been a judge. pic.twitter.com/o6yhc8uKrH
— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) September 24, 2026
Officials said this is the first representation of that specific “Amduat” episode found among the tombs at Bir Al-Shaghala. The seventh hour centers on the threat posed by the serpent Apophis to the solar bark during the sun god’s passage through the underworld.
Inside the monument, researchers found a vaulted mudbrick hall and two burial chambers beneath the pyramidal structure. The excavation also produced a sandstone offering table, a purification basin, pottery vessels and a bronze coin bearing the image of Roman Emperor Constantine.
The Constantine coin fits the site’s broad late Roman setting, but officials have not said that it dates the tomb’s original construction.
Cemetery reveals centuries of Egyptian, Greek and Roman influence
Archaeologists also found signs that parts of the monument may have been reused later.
Bir Al-Shaghala was a major cemetery linked to ancient Mothis, near modern Mut in the Dakhla Oasis. Egyptian archaeological teams have worked at the site since 2002 and uncovered numerous Roman-era tombs, including several with pyramid-shaped superstructures.
Earlier excavations also produced Greek and Demotic inscriptions and literary texts. Scholars have documented a broader pattern at the cemetery in which Egyptian funerary beliefs remained central while Greek language and Roman-period architecture appeared alongside them.
The newly found inscription adds another piece to that record. Its full wording has not yet been published, leaving the identity and career of the possible judge open to further study.
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