(CNN) -- A newly found pharaoh's tomb in Egypt has historians scrambling to rewrite the chronicles of the ancient kings of the Nile. Researchers with the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology recently discovered intricate and vibrantly colored pictures in the tombs of Abydos in the Egyptian desert, and what they read in the pictographs astounded them. The team leader found the name of a previously unknown pharaoh who ruled the area 3,600 years ago, and the first proof of the suspected but shadowy Abydos Dynasty. Josef Wegner, working with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, discovered a previously looted tomb that unusually still had its pictures and writing in tact. The pharaoh's name is Woseribre Senebkay, described as the "king of upper and lower Egypt."
@highlight
Josef Wegner of University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology made discovery
@highlight
Pictures in tombs of Abydos in Egyptian desert date from around 1600 B.C.
@highlight
Wegner found the name of an unknown pharaoh of the shadowy Abydos Dynasty
@highlight
Tomb is "the necropolis of an entire forgotten dynasty," Wegner says in statement
It turns out @placeholder was 5 feet, 9 inches tall and died some time in his mid-40s, the team determined.