Israel’s archaeological authorities announced on Sunday the accidental discovery of an intact 3,300-year-old burial pit from the time of Pharaoh Ramses II, full of pottery, bronze objects and bones, writes AFP.

“This tomb can give us a more complete picture of funeral rites at the end of the Bronze Age,” said Eli Yannai, an expert on the period at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), citing the “extremely rare discovery.”

The tomb was discovered last Tuesday when a worker working with an excavator in the Palmachim National Park, south of the Tel Aviv metropolis, came across a piece of stone that turned out to be the tomb’s roof.

Using video cameras and torches, archaeologists found ancient pots, urns, cups, bones and various bronze objects, including arrowheads, the IAA announced on Sunday, releasing the first images of the find.

“When I saw the objects in the cave on the Palmachim beach, my eyes immediately lit up, such a discovery happens only once in a lifetime. And to find whole objects that have not been touched by anyone since the first use is simply incredible,” enthused David Gelman, an archaeologist at the IAA.

According to Israeli archaeologists, the objects were placed in the burial cave to accompany the deceased after death and were left untouched for 3,300 years, including at least one relatively intact human skeleton.

The objects date back to the time of Ramses II, who ruled Egypt between 1279 and 1213 BC. and who also controlled Canaan, an area that included the equivalent of modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, and parts of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, according to the Antiquities Authority.

Authorities have sealed off the vault and placed security around it until they formulate a plan to continue excavating the site, where “some objects” have already been looted in the short period between its discovery and its closure last week, the IAA said.