News from the Valley of the Kings

Jane Akshar has a good write up of the Muumification Museum lecture about the work on the tomb of Djehuty at Dra Abu Naga.  I see no point duplicating any of Jane's work, so please visit her blog to read it.

Jane Akshar reported a few days ago that there are have been substantial finds including papyrus in Dra' Abu El-Naga on the West Bank near the Valley of the Kings.  Zahi Hawass was expected in Luxor yesterday to make an announcement, but so far I have found nothing.  However, a comment on Jane's post is even more interesting:

We were hiking near the Tombs of the Nobles yesterday and saw about 2 dozen workers removing sand and walked up the hill to near Sennefer's tomb and saw that, yes, it was an excavation. We saw pot sherds on the ground and a big yellow tape announcing that it was an archaeological excavation, please keep out. Interesting!
Best,
Sharon

There's a nice photo of this figure on Dr Hawass's blog.

It's unclear which tomb this was from, but the implication is that it was from TT1, the tomb of Djehuty.

There is a new video of these discoveries on Dr Hawass's site. It's a nice video about three tombs of the Nobles, two of which have not yet been excavated. That's something of a new development as historically we've only had reports of findings from Dr Hawass when they have been comprehensively investigated. It's a very welcome change and I'm grateful for his understanding that we like news early in the process.

(Dra Abu El Naga is a royal burial ground in the Theban Hills on Luxor's West Bank which pre-dates the Valley of the Kings / Valley of the Queens. Most of the tombs are tombs of nobles and I understand that's what has been found.)

Kate

When I posted about that the tomb of Amun-em-Opet had been found, I said that the finds of mummies had been fragmentary. As can be seen from the new photo on Dr Hawass's site, the mummy shown isn't in great condition, but the source which had described it as fragmentary clearly got it wrong.

Dr Hawass has announced that an SCA mission under his leadership has found three new tombs at Dra Abu el-Naga on the West Bank of the Nile near Luxor. Two undecorated tombs have not been opened, but they have opened one shaft tomb:

Dr. Hawass stated that the newly discovered tomb belongs to the Supervisor of Hunters, Amun-em-Opet, and that it dates to shortly before the reign of King Akhenaten (1372-1355 BC).

They are not linked in the main article, but there is also a photo of the top of the shaft and an interior photo showing a conservator working on the ceiling of the tomb which has a small patch of decoration. Remains of two mummies have been found but are too fragmentary to be identified.

The team has also found funerary tomb seals for Amenhotep-Ben-Nefer, the Supervisor of the Cattle of Amun.

A couple of good photos have surfaced today: Dr Hawass's site is carrying a photo of a workman examining the ceiling of the new burial chamber; and Voice of America has a photo of gold rings found during the clearance.

Dr Hawass has announced discovery of a new burial chamber by a Spanish team at the bottom of a shaft in the Tomb of Djehuty (TT11) at Dra Abu El-Naga on the West Bank of the Nile near Luxor. There's no permalink yet for the main story so just go to the main site:

• http://www.hawass.com/

There's not a lot of text, but this one is the meat of it:

The discovery is remarkable, as only four other decorated burial chambers dating to this period are known. Although the names of Djehuty, his father, and his mother were intentionally erased in the upper part of the monument, they are intact in the newly discovered lower burial chamber. At the entrance to the lower chamber, the Spanish team found five gold earrings and two gold rings, which date to the early- to mid-18th Dynasty and probably belonged to Djehuty or to a member of his family.

However, there are an extra couple of pages with photos that do have permalinks:

• Paintings (Book of the Dead) on one wall & celining


• Image of Goddess Nut

In 2003 a sarcophagus of a woman was discovered buried in the tombs courtyard. It is not known who she is. Djehhuty was overseer of the treasury and overseer of the works for Hatshepsut. He lived on into Tuthmosis III's reign. Both pharaohs are represented in the tomb.

Reminder that Jane Akshar wrote up a lecture on the work at TT11 given at the Mummification Museum in February. The main website for Proyecto Dehuty gives the history of the Spanish team's work. The most recent news isn't on there yet but no doubt will be when they write up the 2009 season; however, it's best to ignore the English version of the site and jump straight in to the Spanish one which has a day by day dig diary replete with lots of photos. This is an extract from the first entry of the season.

On one hand digging burial chamber of the tomb of Djehuty we discover at the end of the previous season, after digging the pit depth of eight meters leading up to it. The camera has a considerable size and is filled with earth and stone almost to the ceiling. Therefore, we do not know what we are going to find when the excavator. Everything seems to indicate, by a few sherds visible on the surface, which has been re-used around 1000 years before Christ, or nearly 500 years after it was buried Djehuty, but our luck seems to have escaped the action of the looters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which are by far the most devastating and violent.

That makes it clear that the chamber was discovered last year (not early in 2009 as Dr Hawass' press release indicates - we are getting used to that by now) but needed to be dug clear in 2009. It's worth reading through the dig diary from about 21st January as that's the day they got access to the new chamber and is the first report of their findings in the tomb but later days cover finding human bones near the entrance. Warning, though. The photos shown inline are only thumbnails. You need to click on them to see them enlarged. The temptation is to rely on a Google translation to read the text but if you do that the photos don't enlarge when you click on them: if you wish to see the bigger photos you need to click on them from the original Spanish page.

Kate

As an aside, can I also recommend the diary entry from 16th January 2009. This covers their visit to ...

the tomb of the three princesses who were handed over to Syrian king Tutmosis III as a way to seal and ensure good diplomatic relations with Egypt when the Egyptian king established and consolidated the Egyptian authority on Palestine and southern Syria as far as the Euphrates River near the town of Karkemish. The tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1916 and the magnificent treasure is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

It's something that isn't often mentioned online so it may be of interest to some readers. Indeed one of my reasons for blogging it here is so that I can find it again myself!

The first announcement of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings came in August 2005 when the Egyptian State Information Service announced that an Egyptian Polish team had been given to excavate the tomb of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Amenhotep I in the Valley of the Kings. As I describe below, unfortunately this was mis-reported by the press how announced the stunning find of an intact tomb.

Amenhotep I was the second pharaoh (1526-1506 BC) of the 18th Dynasty. His tomb was mentioned in the Abbott Papyrus, one of the highlights of the British Museum. The papyrus dates from around 11ooBC (about 400 years after the death of Amenhotep I) and describes an investigation into the looting of royal tombs. Amenhotep's tomb was found to be intact but his mummy was moved by priests to cache in the cliffs of Deir el Bahri (TT320, the Tomb of the Royal Mummie) where it was discovered on 6th July 1881 among 36 assorted royal and anonymous mummies by egyptologist Emile Brugsch . The cache was probably discovered as early as 1860 by the infamous Rasaul brothers.

His mummy remains wrapped to this day.

Presumably, once his mummy had been safely transferred, his original tomb was re-sealed. And the tomb's location remained a mystery although it is variously thought to be either KV39 in the Valley of the Kings or at Dra' Abu el-Naga, although neither has definitively been identified as his tomb. Indeed Niwinski, the leader of the Polish expedition, believes the tomb remains undiscovered in the cliffs of Deir el Bahri above the magnficent Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut as Zahi Hawas reports in December 2005. Unfortunately due to a translation error, Pravda reported with great excitement that his tomb had been found intact.

The search to identify the tomb of Amenhotep I continues.