Three ancient paintings dating back to the Middle Kingdom were discovered by an American-Egyptian excavation mission in Aswan, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el Damati said.

The mission is led by Kate Liszka from Princeton University and Bryan Kraemer from the University of Chicago.

In statements, Damati said inscriptions on the paintings suggest links with a fortified settlement in “Hodi Valley”, 35 km southwest of Aswan, but most of them have eroded over time and need research to learn more about the settlement.

A team is being formed to study the inscriptions through the Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) technique, he said.

Hodi Valley is important in the archaeology world as it contained several amethyst quarries, used in making jewelry, where Egyptian missions were sent during the Middle Kingdom for the precious stone, head of the Egyptian antiquities sector Mahmoud Afifi said.

Two of the discovered paintings mention the 28th year of the ruling of the Twelfth Dynasty King Senusret I, who ruled from 1971 to 1926 BC, he added.

The Middle kingdom of Egypt (also known as The Period of Reunification) is the period in the history of ancient Egypt between about 2000 BC and 1700 BC, stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Twelfth Dynasty.