An unfinished funeral painting from the tomb of Ptahmes

Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the mayor of Ancient Egypt's capital.

His resting place in Saqqara had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first took away some of its decorative wall panels, officials said.

Ptahmes, the mayor of Memphis, also served as army chief, overseer of the treasury and royal scribe under Seti I.

Hieroglyphs carved into the rock reveal the name and position of Ptahmes, the mayor of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis. The head of a female statue found within the tomb 

He rose to be the High Priest of Amun at Karnak under his son and successor, Ramses II, in the 13th century B.C.

The discovery of his tomb earlier this year in a New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara, south of Cairo, solves a riddle dating back to 1885, when foreign expeditions made off with pieces of the tomb.

'Since then it was covered by sand and no one knew about it,' said lead excavator Ola el-Aguizy, from the Cairo University.

'It is important because this tomb was the lost tomb.'

The ancient tomb of Ptahmes, was rediscovered after it was lost under the sands at the end of the 19th century

Some of the artifacts ended up in museums in the Netherlands, the United States and Italy as well as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, providing the only clues about the missing tomb.

A team from Cairo University's archaeology department found the tomb during new excavations of the area that started in 2005, Professor el-Aguizy said.

The inner chambers of the large, temple-style tomb and Ptahmes' mummy remain undiscovered.

The archeology department first began its excavation in Saqqara decades ago, with some 43 tombs discovered since the 1980s.