A team of archaeologists led by an Italian professor have discovered the mummified remains of dozens of ancient Egyptians in a tomb in the southern Egyptian city of Aswan.

The tomb dates back to the Greco-Roman period, between 332BC and AD395, and contains the remains of 35 men, women and children. Archaeologists discovered a small room with four mummies before finding 31 others in a room with items used in the funerary trade, including vases containing bitumen, and an intact stretcher made from palm wood and linen.

The remains of a number of small children were found lodged in a recess on one side of the room. Two of the mummies, believed to be a mother and child, were well conserved but others were badly damaged.

Hieroglyphics on coffin fragments revealed the name of the person who owned the necropolis – Tjit.

Other artefacts, including decorated masks, statues and painted cartonnage – a papyrus mummy covering – were also found.

The excavation, which mapped out 300 tombs near one of Aswan’s major landmarks, the Mausoleum of Aga Khan, was a joint mission between Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities and the University of Milan.

“It’s a very important discovery because we added something to the history of Aswan that was missing,” said Patrizia Piacentini, the professor of Egyptology at the university, who led the search.

“We knew about tombs and necropoli dating back to the second and third millennium, but we didn’t know where the people who lived in the last part of the Pharaoh era were. Aswan, on the southern border of Egypt, was also a very important trading city.”

The tomb, which was found in an area covered by sand, was looted in antiquity.

The mummies will be studied by an anatomopathologist before being put back into the tomb, which has been surrounded by iron doors and is watched over by three guards.

Excavations in other parts of Egypt have yielded similar discoveries, with the government keen to announce news of the findings in an effort to revive tourism, which has suffered as a result of the 2011 uprising that led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak as president and subsequent unrest.

A Pharaonic tomb containing 50 mummies was found in Minya, south of Cairo, in February, and in early April dozens of mummified mice were among animals found in an ancient grave in the town of Sohag, also south of Cairo.

“Egyptians are excavating even in places that in the past were not excavated, so they are making more and more discoveries,” said Piacentini. “I think there’ll be even more in the future.”