A forgotten Egyptian sarcophagus from over 3,000 years ago has been discovered to have the face of Sun god Ra-Horakhty – hidden beneath a layer of paint on the inside of its lid.

The coffin, one of three investigated by Dr. Peter Der Manuelian, the director of Harvard Semitic Museum, belonged to Ankh-khonsu, a porter in a temple dedicated to the god Amun-Ra.

The other two contained the remains of Mut-iy-iy, a female temple singer, and Pa-di-mut, a craftsman and priest.

All three have been dated back to the 22nd Dynasty of Egypt, sometimes known as the Bubastite Dynasty, roughly 945‒712 BC.

The team were re-examining three coffins dating back over 3,000 years (Image: Harvard University)

All three had been discovered some time ago but put aside after only a cursory inspection. In particular there was virtually no documentation for the Ankh-khonsu casket.

Dr der Manuelian described the opening of the sarcophagus as “a heart-stopping moment,” because on the inside of the lid there was a hidden image inside.

Beneath a thick layer of residue the archaeologists spotted a brightly coloured image. The vivid yellow and orange painting was surrounded by hieroglyphs that confirmed they were looking at the face of “Ra-Horakhty, the great God, Lord of Heaven”.

Dr der Manuelian described the discovery as ‘heart-stooping’ (Image: Harvard University)

The mysterious painting was hidden beneath a layer of thick resin (Image: Harvard University)

Ra was the chief of the Egyptian gods, identified with the noonday Sun and ruler of the Earth and the sky.

Horus was a lesser sky god who was at times merged with Ra in Egyptian mythology to form the powerful Ra-Horakhty entity.

The presence of this hidden image raises the possibility that there may be many similar messages from the distant past concealed within humble burials – leading us to a fuller understanding of the lives and believes of these people who lived many hundreds of lifetimes ago.

The team spent over a week stuyding the forgotten coffins (Image: Harvard University)

The Egyptians’ religion was a complex network of overlapping beliefs.

While certain gods were traditionally shown with the heads of animals, the Egyptians of that era didn’t necessarily believe that they looked like that. The representations of their gods were symbolic, depicting their areas of influence.

Pharaohs were seen as gods, and it was even possible for an ordinary person to be revered as a god – Imhotep, who was chancellor and advisor to the pharaoh Djoser, became increasingly important in Egyptian theology in the 1,000 years after his death.

The coffins had been left in a container for many years and not properly investigated (Image: Harvard University)

But Ra, often in combination with other gods such as Amun and Horus, was their supreme god. He was seen as ruling not only the earth and the sky but the underworld. he also has responsibility for kings and the rule of law.

While he was most often represented as a man with the head of a falcon – which had a snake wrapped around the sun above it – he was also sometime seen as a man with a beetle’s head or a ram, beetle, phoenix, heron, serpent, bull, cat, or occasionally a lion.