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A stone disk recovered from a 5,000-year-old tomb has puzzled archaeologists for generations. Its shape looks surprisingly modern, and the debate over what it was actually made for is far from over. © Credit: Alain Guilleux ==================================================================== Found in an ancient Egyptian tomb almost a century ago, the Sabu Disk remains one of archaeology’s most unusual discoveries. Its distinctive shape has sparked countless theories over the years, even though researchers still favor a much simpler explanation. The stone object was discovered in 1936 in the tomb of Sabu, an official buried at the Saqqara necropolis during Egypt’s First Dynasty. Dating...

This delicate stone vessel was discovered in 1936 in the tomb of Sabu, an ancient Egyptian official buried in the Saqqara necropolis during the first dynasty period. When it was found, the disk was in pieces. It has since been reconstructed and is in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.Sabu's mastaba, a rectangular tomb with sloping walls and a flat roof, was excavated by British Egyptologist Walter Emery. In his publication describing the Saqqara tombs, Emery wrote that the burial chamber had been looted for its jewelry and precious metals. But Sabu's skeleton was intact inside a wooden...