A 2,000-year-old mummy shroud recently rediscovered by museum curators is going on display for the first time.

The unique artefact will be on show at a new exhibition which opens at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on Friday.

Dating back to about 9BC, the shroud was discovered by curators doing an inventory of the museum's Egyptian collections.

Senior curator Dr Margaret Maitland found the folded shroud wrapped in brown paper.

With it was a note in a Second World War service envelope written by a past curator. The parcel had been in storage since the 1940s.

The note said the shroud came from the tomb of a Roman-era Egyptian family excavated in the mid-19th century in the city of Thebes.

The shroud belonged to the previously unknown son of a Roman official but the tomb itself had been in use since just after Tutankhamun's reign in 1290BC.

The exhibition - titled The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial - tells the story of the tomb over almost 1000 years of use.

Dr Maitland said: "To discover an object of this importance in our collections, and in such good condition, is a curator's dream.

"Before we were able to unfold the textile, tantalising glimpses of colourful painted details suggested that it might be a mummy shroud, but none of us could have imagined the remarkable figure that would greet us when we were finally able to unroll it.

"The shroud is a very rare object in superb condition and is executed in a highly unusual artistic style, suggestive of Roman period Egyptian art, yet still very distinctive."

Due to the fragility of the ancient textile, conservators gently humidified it so that the fibres would become less brittle.

This allowed them to carefully unfold the shroud, a process which took almost 24 hours.

A hieroglyphic inscription revealed the shroud belonged to Aaemka, the previously unknown son of official Montsuef and his wife Tanaut.

Dr Maitland added: "It is extraordinarily rare that we have such an incredible group of objects belonging to a whole ancient Egyptian family in our collections.

"To have been able to expand this group of objects with this new discovery is very exciting, and further enhances our understanding of the story of this wonderful tomb and its occupants."