CAIRO: Spanish archaeologists have discovered a millennia-old mummy in `very good condition`near the southern Egyptian town of Luxor, the antiquities ministry said on Sunday.

The find was in a tomb probably dating from between 1075-664 BC, on the west bank of the River Nile, 700 kms south of Cairo, a statement said. The mummy had been bound with linen stuck together with plaster.

It was in a brightly coloured wooden sarcophagus and had been buried near a temple from the era of fourth-millennium warrior king Thutmose Ill.

The tomb was likely to have belonged to a nobleman, Amenrenef, who was `a servant of the royal household`, the ministry said.

The archaeological team`s head, Myriam Seco Alvarez, said the mummy was decorated with `many colourful decorations recalling religious symbols from ancient Egypt, such as the goddesses Isis and Nephtys displaying their wings, and the four sons of Horus`.

The earliest evidence of mummification in Egypt suggests that the practice of wrapping bodies to preserve them after death dates back as far as 4500 BC.-AFP