A request from the Department of Ancient Egypt at the British Museum has resulted in a 4,000-year-old discovery at Hawick Museum.
A box of pottery, long-untouched and undocumented, turned out to contain numbered items, many of them from the Middle Kingdom of 2040-1750 BC.
The items were collected by the Egyptologist John Garstang at Esna, Upper Egypt, in the early 20th Century.
The British Museum is to date and analyse the collection.
The pottery came to light after an assistant keeper in the department of Ancient Egypt and the Sudan at the British Museum sent a request for information on Ancient Egyptian collections held by local museums.
"We were always pretty sure that the pots were from Ancient Egypt, but we had no idea they held such archaeological significance"
Staff had suspected the pottery was Egyptian but lacked written confirmation.
The discovery brings the Ancient Egyptian collection at Hawick Museum to more than 50 items.
The British Museum has undertaken to date and explain the collection, which will be on display next year.
Shona Sinclair, curator of Hawick Museum, said: "This is the final chapter in a long mystery story.
"We were always pretty sure that the pots were from Ancient Egypt, but we had no idea they held such archaeological significance."
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