Pictures: Egypt Priest's Tomb Found Near Pyramids

Pictures: Egypt Priest's Tomb Found Near Pyramids

Discoveries Loom at Pyramids?

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic

Workers brush sand from artifacts at the pyramid builders' cemetery in 2001.

Although Hawass thinks the workers' graves and the newfound tomb might be linked, another possibility is that the tomb of Rudj-Ka could be a western extension of the massive necropolis of Memphis, on the edge of modern-day Cairo, he said.

"The location is surprising," Hawass said. "We never expected to find a big, large tomb like this in the south of the pyramid builders' [cemetery] at all."

(Related: "'Lost' Pyramid Found Buried in Egypt.")