A Japanese archaeological team has discovered the tomb of a leading beer producer from the pharaonic period in the famed temple city of Luxor.

The tomb of Khonso Em Heb, who lived 3,200 years ago, was "one of the most important discoveries made in the city of Luxor ... at the Thebes necropolis", according to Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt's antiquities minister.

The tomb has on its walls and ceilings landscapes and diverse sculptures that "revealed many details of daily life during the ancient Egyptian times", including family relationships and religious rituals.

One piece of artwork shows Khonso Em Heb, who also headed the royal storehouses during the pharaonic Ramesside period, making offerings to the gods along with his wife and daughter.

The archaeologists discovered the site while cleaning the courtyard of "another tomb belonging to a top official from the reign of King Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty", said Jiro Kondo, head of the Japanese team from Waseda University.

The tomb will be placed under tight security until the excavation work is completed, the ministry said.

Luxor, a city of around 500,000 residents on the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt, is an open-air museum of intricate temples, tombs of pharaonic rulers and landmarks such as the Winter Palace hotel where crime novelist Agatha Christie is said to have written Death on the Nile.

AFP