New York: Archaeologists have unearthed pieces of a 2,300-year-old colourful collar, which was worn by a mummy, in an Egyptian tomb in Thebes.
Collars called "wesekhs" made of beads were worn by people in ancient Egypt.
The newly-discovered painted collar is made of a different type of material called cartonnage (a plastered material) and was meant to be worn by a mummy after death.
A clay seal found near the collar suggests that it was worn by the mummy of a wealthy undertaker.
Dating back around 2,300 years ago and found in modern-day Luxor, the collar is painted in a vivid array of colours, designs and images that show elements of ancient Egyptian religion, website `LiveScience` reported.
The tomb where the collar was found was originally built more than 3,300 years ago for a butler named Parennefer who served the pharaoh Akhenaten.
As time passed, more individuals (the precise number is unknown) were buried at the site, one of them being interred around 2,300 years ago with this colourful collar.
The re-use of tombs was a common practice in Thebes.
"I guess it was much more economical to use these old derelict tombs than to excavate out new tombs at that time," Susan Redford, of Penn State University, told the website.
She and her team found hundreds of cartonnage fragments in excavations at the site, the fragments that made up this collar being discovered in 2000 and 2002.
The team`s artist, Rupert Nesbitt, carefully put the collar back together again, along with several other coverings that belong to different mummies.
