New Egyptian discovery after 3000 years
Michael Theodoulou writes at the TimesOnLine
EIGHT decades have passed since the British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king, in Egypt in 1922. Most experts had abandoned hope of finding further treasures in the Valley of the Kings, the desert valley near the ancient city of Luxor where the pharaohs were buried.They were wrong. Journalists were yesterday given their first peek inside a tomb that had, until last week, lain buried and unopened for three millennia. Inside were five wooden sarcophagi with painted masks, surrounded by more than 20 large alabaster storage jars, their seals intact. Such jars were used in sets of four to hold the mummified entrails of a dead person.
Edwin Brock, the co-director of an excavating team from the University of Memphis, Tennessee, that discovered the tomb less than eight yards from Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, said: “It was a wonderful thing. It was just so amazing to find an intact tomb here after all the work that’s been done before. This was totally unexpected.”Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said: “This is the most important discovery in the valley for 84 years.”
The discovery was made by chance. The team was working on the tomb of King Amenmeses, a late 19th-dynasty pharaoh, when it found the remains of ancient workmen’s huts. In their foundations the team found a vertical shaft 5ft deep leading to a door made of blocks of stone.
The team has cleared enough of the door to give a tantalising glimpse of the chamber within. At some point one of the sarcophagi had toppled towards the door, exposing its white painted face. Another is partially open, showing a brown cloth covering the mummy inside.
The coffins, dating from the 18th Dynasty (1567BC-1320BC), when Egyptian culture was at its peak, appeared to have suffered damage from termites.
Archaeologists will now study hieroglyphs on the sarcophogi for clues about their contents. Given the burial chamber’s proximity to that of Tutankhamun, it is possible that one of the caskets might contain an ancient queen.
Dr Hawass held out hope that one of the mummies could be that of a celebrated figure such as Nefertiti, the powerful queen of an 18th Dynasty pharaoh.
“No one can be buried in the Valley of the Kings except kings and important people related to the kings,” he said. “Therefore these mummies have to be kings or queens or important people such as nobles or the father or mother of a king.”
I have always been awed that there are still so amazing things left to be discovered. And the stories about how things are found are fascinating...it's usually a lucky accident...check out the story of how the Terracotta warriors were discovered.
Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive
