Mummified individuals from Side Chamber 3 of Theban Tomb 209, showing variation in body orientation and arm position. Credit: Proyecto dos cero nueve, Universidad de La Laguna / Jared Carballo-Pérez

The shift from placing mummies individually to stacking bodies in a Theban tomb shows how burial practices and their symbolic meanings changed over time.

In tomb TT 209, an ancient Egyptian burial place in the Theban Necropolis opposite Luxor, four human mummies and a mummified dog were buried one above another. The dog rested directly on top of the mummies of a man and a woman.

These stacked burials were part of a much longer history of people making room for the dead. Researchers in Spain who studied the tomb’s third chamber found evidence that its increasingly crowded arrangements reflected deliberate choices and changing rituals. Their findings, published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, suggest that new burials transformed the space while retaining connections to those already there.

The group of four people and the dog occupied the chamber’s southeastern section and dates to the Ptolemaic period, which lasted from 305 to 30 BCE. The animal’s position raises questions about both its relationship with the people below it and its possible role in their burial.

Exterior view of the superstructure of TT 209. The protective covering and visual homogenization of its walls were completed at the end of the 2026 season. Credit: Proyecto dos cero nueve / José Miguel Barrios Mufrege

“One detail I find quite beautiful is the presence of a mummified dog placed directly on top of the mummies of a man and a woman,” said first author Dr. Jared Carballo-Pérez, a researcher at the University of La Laguna. “This could indicate a close relationship between these human individuals and the animal, an idea that I think is quite easy to empathize with.”

“It could also reflect a further change in ritual practice, with an animal taking on the role of a psychopomp, a symbolic helper in the journey to the afterlife,” added senior author Dr. Miguel Ángel Molinero Polo, a professor of Egyptology at the University of La Laguna.

Detail of superposition and spatial relationships between individuals in SC3 (TT 209). The figure shows the relative position of several individuals, highlighting direct vertical contacts and partial overlaps between bodies. M6 and M7 are closely superimposed, with the canid (M9) placed over their lower limbs. Credit: J. Carballo-Pérez

Older burials shaped new arrangements

TT 209 is one of more than 400 tombs in the Theban Necropolis. It was built during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, which lasted from 754 to 656 BCE, and remained in use until its abandonment during the Ptolemaic period. To reconstruct the chamber’s history, the researchers excavated it, photographed the mummies, and made sketches and written descriptions documenting each body’s position, orientation, and relationship to the tomb’s structures.

The chamber contained nine funerary deposits, including individual and multiple burials, along with objects placed with the dead.

“We found a total of 16 mummified human individuals, a mummified dog, and a disturbed deposit containing the remains of at least four individuals,” said Carballo-Pérez. “The detailed study of the bodies indicates neither chaotic accumulation nor a loss of the original ritual over time. Rather, there was a spatial logic in which each new deposition was adapted to the presence of previous bodies – a kind of funerary memory in the processes of reuse.”

Evidence of disturbance and displacement affecting two mummified individuals in side Chamber 3. Credit: Proyecto dos cero nueve, Universidad de La Laguna / Jared Carballo-Pérez

From separate coffins to stacked mummies

Differences in the objects accompanying the dead helped the researchers distinguish burial practices across that history. The earliest burials were relatively spread out.

“The earliest individuals buried here appear to have been of high social standing, as they were interred in coffins, with funerary nets and amulets, and with an assemblage containing costly items, such as the contents held in Phoenician amphorae, a large number of which were found alongside them,” said Molinero Polo.

Amphorae are storage vessels. In the later stacked burials, the researchers found a different combination of containers and treatment of the bodies.

Schematic plan of SC3 in TT 209 showing the approximate spatial distribution of funerary deposits (FD). Early deposits (FD1–FD2) are located in the eastern/northeastern and southwestern sectors and display relatively discrete spatial organization. Subsequent and later deposits (FD3–FD9) are mainly concentrated in the southeastern sector. The dashed outlines indicate approximate depositional areas, while the schematic representations of mummified bodies reflect their general orientation and spatial relationships rather than exact anatomical positions. The circular area (FD6) corresponds to a secondary assemblage of disarticulated, thermally altered remains. Credit: Jared Carballo-Pérez

“The bodies buried in vertical superposition did not have coffins but were carefully mummified. They also can be associated with upright jars that point to a specific ritual not found in the earlier phases of the tomb’s use,” said Molinero Polo.

The bodies themselves recorded how the use of space changed. During a span from around 680 to 404 BCE, encompassing the later part of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty and the Persian period, new bodies began to occupy whatever room remained. Some had an arm folded inward, unlike the typically extended arms of earlier burials.

During the Persian period, the arrangement also shifted from individual deposits to bodies placed in layers. Across the chamber, the researchers found bodies resting above others in two-thirds of the burials. Later deposits included people whose arms were both folded over their chests, a posture Egyptologists call the Osirian position.

Preserved painted stucco decoration showing a goddess on the inner side of the floorboard of the outer box of Coffin 2. Credit: Photograph: Proyecto dos cero nueve / José Miguel Barrios Mufrege. Drawing: Proyecto dos cero nueve / Daniel Méndez Rodríguez

Floods and fires complicate the evidence

The surviving arrangements cannot reveal every decision made by the people who returned to the tomb.

“We have few details regarding how the people who entered tombs behaved, what their motivations were in each historical period, and how they conceptually reconfigured the pre-existing space,” said Molinero Polo.

Centuries of use also complicated the physical evidence. The chamber flooded repeatedly, experienced fires, and was entered again by people who moved debris within the tomb. In some deposits, these disturbances make it difficult to establish the exact order of burials or determine the intentions behind them.

Preserved painted decoration showing an Osirian djed pillar on the outer side of the floorboard of the outer box of Coffin 3. Credit: Photograph: Proyecto dos cero nueve / José Miguel Barrios Mufrege. Drawing: Proyecto dos cero nueve / Daniel Méndez Rodríguez

“Nevertheless, what we present means that deposits that were previously considered ‘disordered’ can be reinterpreted,” concluded Carballo-Pérez. “This helps us develop a better understanding of the social behaviors behind funerary practices.”

Reference: “From individualized mummies to collective accumulations: an archaeothanatological analysis of funerary reuse in Theban Tomb 209 (Twenty-Fifth Dynasty–Ptolemaic Egypt)” by Jared Carballo-Pérez and Miguel Ángel Molinero Polo, 17 August 2026, Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
DOI: 10.3389/fearc.2026.1888379

Fieldwork and research related to SC3 between 2018 and 2026 were supported by the Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural del Gobierno de Canarias, the Fundación Palarq (Barcelona–Madrid), and the Universidad de La Laguna. Additional support in specific seasons was provided by the Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural y Bellas Artes of the Ministerio de Cultura of the Gobierno de España (2019 and 2025–2026) and the Asociación Española de Egiptología. Private/commercial support was limited to occasional financial contributions from Muebles Veri and private sponsors through a crowdfunding campaign to help support the fieldwork.

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