Archaeologists discover long-lost tomb of unknown pharaoh in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt recently uncovered a once-in-a-lifetime discovery: an unknown pharaoh's tomb, dating back 3,600 years.

The excavation, which was conducted near the Egyptian city of Abydos this winter, was announced by the Penn Museum in Philadelphia last week. The pharaoh's tomb was found 23 feet underground and featured a decorated entryway and mudbrick vaults.

Pictures show a team of international archaeologists excavating the deep tomb in the Egyptian desert. 

Excavation leader Dr. Josef Wegner, an egyptology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke with Fox News Digital about the discovery, which dates back to the Second Intermediate Period.

"Surprisingly, we came upon a royal tomb that we had no idea existed," Wegner said. "Excitingly, it's adding new evidence on what seems to be the early development of a group of fascinating kings that we call the Abydos dynasty. They are kind of a lost, forgotten dynasty."

"There were no human remains remaining, there were no remnants of the king himself or his funerary equipments," he said.

"Finding a new pharaoh's tomb is that's always, always quite an exciting moment in time. So it's the second time it's happened to me, and I guess I shouldn't be too greedy, but I'm hoping for more if we can find them," Wegner said.

"It was a period where Egypt was broken apart into a sort of rival kingdoms," the expert explained. "We think there were as many as four."

Wegner characterized the limestone burial chamber as "grand," complete with mud brick vaults and a "very deep shaft entrance system." But unfortunately, the king's name has not emerged yet.

"We were a little frustrated," Wegner laughed. "The ancient tomb robbers were not always very considerate in what they did in the process of tomb robbery."

"We've completed the full excavation of it and what it was, you know, was essentially robbed out. It seems to have been a very richly-equipped royal tomb. So it did attract tomb robbers for that reason."

Even though the tomb was plundered, Wegner is hopeful that more artifacts will show up in the future - and that the pharaoh's name will be discovered.

"There's significant potential in the orbit of the tomb, around the periphery of it, there could well be objects that were discarded, remains of stone vessels," he described. 

"For example, what we call the canopic jars that would have had the name of the king on them. Those kinds of things probably weren't very interesting to tomb robbers."

"And there's indications that there may be more of these tombs," he added.

The next stage is to study the terrain around the tomb, where more evidence is slated to emerge.

Fox News Digital's Sophia Compton contributed to this report.