Nehmes Bastet
UPDATED FEB 21, 2012: She has been found in the "Valley of the Kings," the burial area on the west bank of the Nile River, opposite the ancient city of Thebes (modern day Luxor), a place where the Egyptian Pharaohs and nobility erected their elaborate tombs in preparation for the afterlife. An inscription found on a wooden plaque on the tomb claimed that she was the daughter of one of the Egyptian High Priests.
A "temple singer," she would have performed and sang at the enormous religious complex at Karnak, Egypt. Nehmes Bastet's career took place during the 22nd Dynasty (an era from 945 BC to 712 BC).
A Swiss archaeological team accidentally discovered her 3,000 year old tomb. Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim announced details of the team's find in Egypt, noting the team as coming from Switzerland’s Basel University headed by Elena Pauline-Grothe, field director for excavation, and Susanne Bickel. Mansour Boraiq, who is the top government official for the Antiquities' Ministry in Egypt, noted that the discovery of the tomb makes it the only tomb of a woman not related to an ancient Egyptian royal family ever found in the Valley of the Kings, famous as the place where the gold funeral mask of Tutankhamen was unearthed in 1922. The finding of the Nehmes Bastet tomb is the 64th such tomb discovery at the"Valley of the Kings" location.
News stories have noted that Pauline-Grothe had examined the tomb area and it appears the site was originally used 400 years prior to Nehmes Bastet's burial, and was apparently reused for her benefit, as the Egyptian priests of the era of the 22nd dynasty, though under the leadership of Libyan kings, were yet an independent political force and had reserved the right for burial in the valley.
[Below] Map of the Karnak area in Egypt where the casket of Nehmes Bastet was found.