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egypt's "new" tomb For best results we recommend you maximise this browser window STOP PRESS:
Friday 10th February 2006:
New tomb opened in the Valley of
the Kings!
Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb in the
Valley of the Kings, the first since King Tutankhamun's was found in 1922.
A University of Memphis-led team found the previously unknown tomb
complete with sarcophagi and five mummies. The archaeologists were working
last year on the neighbouring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th dynasty
pharaoh, when they found the remains of ancient workmen's huts. The
scientists then discovered a depression in the bedrock that they suspected
was a shaft. When they returned to work during this excavation season,
they opened the shaft and found the door to the chamber. But Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass says they
"might be royals or nobles" moved from "original graves to protect
them from grave robbers".
"We don't really know what kind of people are inside but I do
believe they look royal. Maybe they are kings or queens or nobles,"
he said. The newly-found tomb is thought to date from the 18th
Pharaonic Dynasty, the first dynasty of the New Kingdom which ruled
between 1539 BC and 1292 BC and made its capital in Thebes, now
Luxor. It is the 63rd tomb to be discovered since the valley was first
mapped in the 18th century, and was unexpectedly found only five
metres away from King Tutankhamun's. The team of archaeologists had
not been looking for it. "The excavation team was focused on the
tomb of a 19th Dynasty pharaoh, King Amenmesses," said Patricia
Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis.
"They were working in front of the tomb looking for foundation
deposits possibly related to that tomb, and clearing away some
workmen's huts from the 19th Dynasty that were both to the left and
right side of the tomb," she explained. "Underneath these workmen's
huts, they found a shaft." Four metres below the ground was a single chamber
containing sarcophagi with coloured funerary masks and more than 20
large storage jars bearing Pharaonic seals. The sarcophagi were
buried rapidly in the small tomb for an unknown reason. One of the
coffins has toppled and faces the door, showing its white, painted
face. Another was partially open, showing a brown cloth covering the
mummy inside. At the bottom of a 10m
deep pit, a narrow shaft leads down to the door, made of blocks of
stone. A hole about a foot wide has been cleared from the door.
Inside the chamber,
about 4m x 5m, alabaster pots, some broken, are lined up next to the
sarcophagi. Close up on one of the
mummy cases. STOP PRESS:
Thursday 29th June 2006: Ancient garland in Egyptian tomb! Archaeologists in Egypt expecting to
find a mummy during their excavation of a burial chamber in Luxor have
instead discovered embalming materials and ancient woven flowers. The
3,000-year-old garland is the first to be discovered. It was found in the
last of the coffins which archaeologists had hoped would contain the
mummies of royal queens or even Tutankhamun's mother.
Hushed researchers had craned
their necks and media scuffled inside the stiflingly hot
underground stone chamber as Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi
Hawass had slowly cracked open the coffin's lid - for what
scientists believe is the first time in more than 3,000 years.
But instead of a mummy, as archaeologists had expected, the
coffin revealed a tangle of fabric and rusty coloured
dehydrated flowers woven together in laurels that looked
likely to crumble to dust if touched. Researchers and media had been invited into
the chamber, near Tutankhamun's tomb, to watch the coffin's opening. The
chief curator of Cairo's Egyptian Museum said the surprise find was "even
better" than discovering a mummy. "I prayed to find a mummy, but when I
saw this, I said it's better - it's really beautiful," said Nadia Lokma,
the chief curator. "It's very rare - there's nothing like it in any
museum. We've seen things like it in drawings, but we've never seen this
before in real life - it's magnificent," she said. Experts say ancient
Egyptian royals often wore garlands entwined with gold strips around their
shoulders in both life and death. Since the discovery of the
tomb, the lids of seven of the coffins - including a tiny one
built for an infant and filled with feather-stuffed pillows -
were removed one by one, revealing pottery shards and fabric,
but no mummies. With the last one
now opened, the tomb still held more mysteries
than answers. It is now hoped that the hieroglyphs
would help scientists identify who the coffins and
tomb were made for and what had happened to the
bodies. Courtesy of BBC News and National Geographic
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