News from the Valley of the Kings

In the end there was just one solution for this genetic data fitting into the family tree and this showed us this must really be Akhenaten and could not be any other.

That's what Albert Zink of the Insitiute of Muumies and a member of the Tutankhamun Family DNA Project team has to say in this report by Paul Schemm for Associated Press.  The article also goes on to reveal that since Akhenaten has now been firmly indentified, a new Akhenaten Museum is planned for Minya province in the hope of increasing the number of tourists who visit. The museum will house other mummies as Hawass reveals:

The museum in Minya will house the mummies of Akhenaten, his mother Queen Tiye and his ill-fated sister-consort and "tell the story about Akhenaten,"

With Hawass stating strongly in the media that the KV55 mummy is Akhenaten - and needing the mummy as the centrepiece of this new musuem, and with another member of the team (above) stating that the DNA data supports only one solution, it will be very difficult now for the team to admit any alternatives.  I have shown in earlier posts that the published DNA strongly suggests this mummy cannot be Akhenaten and proven that alternative interpretations are absolutely possible.  I lack the academic credentials to be taken seriously.  I can only hope that a doctor or professor will take up the baton and publish to show that the KV55 mummy has probably been misidentified by the Hawass team. Unless of course, there is something in the unpublished data which materially changes things, but I find it hard to envisage anything that could.

Over the years I have seen people claim to have witnessed discoveries which were publicly denied.  The latest was Andrew Collins with the Tomb of Birds on the Giza Plateau.  My experience with the Tutankhamun family DNA data is making me rather more open to believing what people have said.  Andrew Collins backed his claim with the publication of photos and video.  If the new law is used to suppress publication of such material discovering the truth is going to become very difficult. 

The Brooklyn team have finished for the season in the Mut Temple.  It's been a fantastic season, the team have done great work as usual and their dig diary has been fantastic.

Andie has found an article with an old black and white photo of the Avenue of Sphinxes.  It's heartbreaking that they lasted thousands of years in near perfect condition but were built over in the last century.  (The photo is probably out of copyright but I cannot find a dated version to be sure so I have linked the article rather than embedded the photo.)

I have a photo but in the current climate I am not sure I dare post it.  I've agonised over it for 10 days now.  I think it was legal to take it - just not to publish it.  So thanks to Stewart.

But like court reporting, there's nothing stopping me from describing it.  The photo was taken in the Western Valley of the Kings in early January. 

There is a a square excavation about 12' x 12' dug up against the cliffs at the side of the path just beside the pile of rubble from last year's excavation.  There was a short wooden ladder down, but the pit was only about 3' deep.  It had all the look of an excavation that was focused on a specific target rather than clearing large areas of ground as we saw last year.  I speculate it is digging a radar anomaly.

The first interesting thing is that stretching alongside the put down the side of the cliff is one of those concrete finds "trays" we have seen before and which are usally only put in when finds are expected from an excavation.  Unfortunately that obscures the face of the excavation in shot which is really frustrating.  What makes it really interesting is that sat in the finds tray are what look for all the world to be about 20 mud bricks. It's possible they are say there to shore up the excavation but at only 3' deep it shouldn't need it.

Stewart said that there was another excavation in the Western Valley they they were very unhappy about him going anywhere near.

Physorg have a report of the DNA study results set to be revealed in a press conference on Wednesday.  The two headlines are as follows:

"Many scholars have hypothesized that Tutankhamun's death was attributable to an accident, such as a fall from his chariot or a kick by a horse or other animal; septicemia or fat embolism secondary to a femur fracture; murder by a blow to the back of the head; or poisoning," the study said.

But genetic testing found evidence that Tutankhamun had been infected with plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes an often deadly form of malaria.

And on parentage:

Using partial Y-chromosome information, the researchers determined that Akhenaten, the controversial pharaoh who ruled from around 1351-1334 BC and tried to radically transform religion in ancient Egypt, was Tut's father, and that Tutankhamun's mother was Akhenaten's sister.

Presumably the "Akhenaten" referred to here is the mummy found in KV55, the most debated tomb in the Valley of the Kings.  For that we will have to wait for the press report. The study also confirmed that Tutankhamun had a club foot and walked with a cane like his father.  That's something that was aleady strongly suspected but I'm guessing it's now proven fact.  He was also the father of the two foetuses found with him in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

The press conference tomorrow will be very interesting but I thought people would welcome the scoop since it's in circulation with a big thank you to Michael Stephens for spotting the Physorg article and giving me the heads up.

With photos hard to come by, first-hand reports are important so a thank you to Maria Nystrom Agback for her report of her visit to the Valley of the Kings on 7th and 7th February 2010.

On the 8th, excavators from the University of Basel were at work digging on both sides of the walkway towards KV34 (on the left side between KV 26 and KV 59, on the right side opposite KV 59), documenting and assemling pottery.

At the entrance of KV63, I was told I had just missed professor Schaden as I watched the birds gathering around the seeds he puts out for them. I could see no activity behind the sign announcing Dr. Hawass examinations, but two wooden crates gave me the impression work is being carried out there.

I am now informed that there are at least 4 excavations in the Valley of the Kings and Theban Hills.  As well as the resported excavation in the Western Valley of the Kings they are also digging again in the Eastern Valley.  Some of the excavations seems to be quite small as though they are digging on radar anomolies. This year, so far, there don't seem to be large scale clearances like last winter.  There is also a team working within KV26.

Some of the guards are reportedly now toting AK47s (or something similar).  Has anybody else noticed that and is it new?

I've been working solidly on the site for the new magazine for the past week and I'm a bit behind with news here, so this is a roundup of several articles.

Avenue of the Sphinxes and the Luxor Temple Mosque

Jane Akshar has more on these.  She also has an update on the excavations in the Temple of Luxor with such photos as in these days we are allowed.  We now have less photos of excavations than a century ago in the day of Howard Carter.  Such is progress apparently.

Brooklyn Museum at the Temple of Mut

The team are back at the Karnak temple of Mut.  You can read about it on their blog.  In terms of reporting, they are once again setting the standards.  It's excavations like the Cliff Mission, The Brooklyn Museum and the new Malqata dig (see below) which are showing that high standards of scholarship in the 21st Century means maintaining a great dig diary online both as a way of sharing culture with the people (culture belongs to all of us, not to the Egyptologists) and as a permanent record of progress day by day.

End of the rant.  This year as well as work in the area around the Taharqa Gate they have also decided to reassemble a 26th Dynasty Healing Chapel.   Do take a look because the photographs are wonderful and the labels help readers to make sense of a very complex site.  There are also photos of 13 coins which they have found and dated to the reigns of Ptolemy IX Soter II.  (No, for once that isn't  typo ;) According to the blog he reigned twice which is something I didn't know.)

Malqata

Michael C. Carlos Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art have a new site about Malqata.  Thanks again to Jane.  Malaqata is the old New Kingdom royal palace on the Theban West Bank.  It's partially a dig diary and partly a history of Malqata which is a site which has been poorly documented online historically so this is a very welcome addition.  The team describe their plans for the season.  At present they are re-excavating the Temple of Amun.

Newsfeed

As many of you know, I maintain a newsfeed on the sidebar which hopefully keeps up with most of the posting about Luxor and the Valley of the Kings without too many false positives.  I've added the new Malqata site and added some filtering to try to remove some of the false matches.  Hopefully it will still work - it's seriously overloaded.  I've included the link above if you want to risk it in your newsreader.  (It does NOT include the feed from this site as it is intended as a utility for me.)

With many thanks again to Kamil Zachert here is another Cliff Mission video shot by Mr. Dariusz Dudziak in November 2009.  This one is 10 minutes long and captivating.



A reminder that there is now a Cliff Mission FaceBook page.  There is some commentary in the video but it is in Polish.  If you really wish to follow what is going on, perhaps the best bet is to remind yourself of Kamil's photostream which has English titles for the photos which essentially give you some key points of reference.

Robert Pick took this photo on 19th January, 2010 while walking in the Theban Hills near the Valley of the Kings.  It clearly shows an excvation underway.  I'm not certain where exactly it was taken.  Robert's full set of photos is here.  If somebody thinks they can piece together where the excavations are based on the photo and the ones taken before and afterwards, then I'm sure that would interest readers.    Since cameras aren't allowed in the Valley of the Kings and guards are stopping people from taking photos, I am assuming this wasn't taken from withinthe Valley, although it could be a view looking back into the Valley of the Kings from the Theban Hills which I understand is still allowed.

I have emailed Robert as well to ask but leaving him comments on the photo in Flickr might encourage him as well, please!   There is a photo taken in the hills which is definitely looking down into the Valley of the Kings and I can't spot anything on that and there has been no other report or photo of excavations in the Valley of the Kings this year - although we all expected them.   I have just trogged through a Google search and nobody has mentioned anything so far as I can tell.

Dennis spotted an update to the KV-63 site with the first of Otto Shaden's dig diary entires for 2010.  Dennis has also studied the Valley of the Kings' photos which the team have posted.  The photo of the Valley of the Kings shows no sign of any excavations.

My thanks to Vincent Brown for spotting this story in Spiegel.  If anybody has missed the background to the allegations of theft against Howard Carter, then it's worth reading.

There is no proof, but the circumstantial evidence that Howard Carter removed items from Tutankhamun's Valley of the Kings tomb is substantial.  Articles from King Tut's tomb are in a number of museums around the world, not just in the Egyptian Museum.  The largest and best known collection of other objects is in the Met and their existence has been in the public domain since the 70s when advertised by Thomas Hoving.  The Spiegel article also identifies an object in the Louvre which is one I hadn't heard about.

It is true that Carter had permisson to remove some items, but the number in circulation seems inconsistent with this. However the complex legal status of the tomb in the 1920s muddies the water enough that an amateur like me is unable to understand whether the allegations against Carter are well-founded; however, nor do I feel able to exonnerate him.   What is perhaps most surprising is that Egypt is not pressing for the return of these articles.  That suggests that Carter did obtain them legally.  (The conspiracy theorists have an alternative explanation which suggests that Carter removed papyrii relating to the Exodus and that there is therefore a reluctance to re-open the question of the clearance of KV62.  The story was covered by Andrew Collins in his book, Tutankhamun - The Exodus Conspiracy.)

If Carter did illegally obtain items from KV62, and enter the tomb in advance of the offical opening, then we no longer know the state of the tomb at discovery.  Archaeologically that may be more important than the removal of a small number of items.  Read the article and make your own mind up.

Somehow I missed this - thanks to Andie for spotting it.  I posted a video recently about TT34, the 25th Dynasty tomb of Montuemhat but Heritage Key have now posted five photos by the wonderful Sandro Vannini.

The page is very confusing,  If you click on Play Slides on the big image, it doesn't work. Instead it links to an anchor further down the page.  It's tempting to go back and try again.  There's no need.  Ignore the big picture and go down to any of the thumbnails lower down.  Click on any of these and the photo gallery will open up for you.

I recently reported that Jane Akshar had posted notes from the Mummification Museum lecture on Tomb 28, one of the Tombs of the Nobles on the West Bank near the Valley of the Kings. Andie has found an earlier announcement in Spanish of the expedition:

The Egyptian authorities have granted permission to Spain to work in a major unpublished 23rd Dynasty Theban tomb. A new Spanish archaeological project in Luxor (Egypt), in charge of the Institute of Studies of the Old Egypt of Madrid [will conduct the project].

There’s also a Web site for the project in Spanish but the front page reads like this:

Tomb No. 28 of Asasif (Friederike Kampp - Die Thebanische Nekropole catalog.) Zum Wandel des Grabgedankens von der 18th. bis zur 20th. Dynastie. (Mainz 1996) is located in the Theban necropolis in the area of Asasif South, front and on the tomb of Dyar (TT366), and adjacent to the tomb of Jeruef (TT192).

This tomb belongs to the period of the dynasty XVIII, during the reign of Amenhotep III (towards 1387 - C. 1348), and was excavated for a sombody who was vizier Amenhotep, valled Huy, whose existence is known securely from the monuments for the Jubilee prime of Amenhotep III, held during the 30th year of his reign.


Excavation of this tomb, with discoveries that could bring, requires a multi-disciplinary approach and will include the development of topographic, architectural and archaeological documentation. The excavation will identify the components that make up the tomb and their artistic and archaeological value, and will assure the architectural structures.


All this must be accompanied by consonant epigraphy, as well as the restoration and consolidation of the monument in all its parts work.

(I've had to paraphrasea bit to make sense.)

There’s more on other pages.
It's also reported Egyptologia by Francisco Martin Valentine and Teresa Bedman. They have put a copyright message on the page to prevent the copying of text so they clearly don’t want people to report even snippets to promote their site so I'll respect that and you’ll need to translate it yourself. The gist though is the that Tomb 28 is of the Amenhotep who was initially the Vizier of Amenhotep during the reign of Amenhotep III, but who later succeeded to the vizierate of Upper Egypt. (Confusingly, Wikipedia reports that his tomb was found in Saqqara.) He disappeared around the 35th year of Amenhotep’s reign and his [Theban] tomb and monuments were later defaced, the authors suppose by adherents of Akhenaten.  Their article is mostly biography of Vizier Amenhotep; there is little about the excavation of the tomb.

Otto Schaden has posted on KV63.com to say that the 2010 season in the Valley of the Kings will start around January 7th.

In a short time I will be leaving for Cairo (New Year’s Eve).  I plan to meet with the recently appointed Director of the Permanent Committee and of Foreign Missions, Dr. Mohammed Ismail Khaled on January 3rd, and then hope to reach Luxor by the following morning.    I will then make the necessary arrangements to have KV-10 opened. There will be a Karnak Symposium going on at that time, so I will try to attend some of those lecture’s as I unpack, get settled in the hotel and prepare for the opening of KV-10 and the start of the season’s work.   My hope is that we can get started in the Valley on or about January 7th.

There's interesting comment above this (thanks for Dennis for noticing):

The Valley of the Kings reveals its mysteries slowly.  There were 83 years separating the discoveries of KV-62 and KV-63, but it may not take another fourscore years before KV-64 appears. 

It's worth taking a quick peek.  Dennis thinks - and I agree - that the contrast between the use of the verb "appear" in relation to KV64 and discovery of KV63 is interesting and could suggest that KV64 has already been "discovered" but we need to wait for it to "appear".

In the fourth and final part of this video series from Heritage Key, Dr Hawass mentions the robberies of KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun.  He believes it was saved ultimately be the construction of tomb KV9.

That's possible, but doesn't explain how KV62 escaped robbery before then.  Perhaps the security in the Valley of the Kings was robust during the early 19th Dynasty, but as Tutankhamun's tomb was robbed in the 18th Dynasty, it seems somewhat unlikely.  Personally I prefer the theory that Horemheb discouraged mention of Tutankhamun along with the Amarnan royalty so the tomb wasn't well-known, and that KV62 was  covered by debris from a flash flood as suggested by Stephen Cross.  Admittedly, debris from the construction of the tomb of Ramses VI may have helped to protect the tomb, but I think it was a combination of all of these factors.

At the end of the video, Dr Hawass ponders the incalculable treasures that could have been in the tomb of Ramses VIII and which tombs could still be found, and which could be intact.  He mentions Neferiti and Amenhotep I, which is interesting.  There's no mention of Ramses VIII which last year was theorised (by Dr Hawass) as one of the tombs found in the Valley of the Kings.

(PS another month is slipping by without news of the DNA testing either.)

Here's another view of the Western Valley of the Kings, this time showing both last season's excavation and the cleared debris and looking towards tomb WV23 (King Ay).  The previous shots have been courtesy of Dave Hay; this one is by Kamil Zachert.

With huge thanks to Dave Hay, here's a picture of the rubble from the excavations in the Western Valley of the Kings piled up on the opposite side of the path on the way up to tomb WV23.

Kamil Zachert has kindly contacted me to tell me that he has updated his Flickr photostream with loads of new photos of the autumn 2009 work by Professor Andrzej Niwinksi. The scale of some of the work is shown by the image I'd added at the top which Kamil has titled "Removing the rest of the Pillar". As always with Kamil, it's a fabulous set of photos.  Just click on the photo above.

If you'd like to see a picture of the professor, there's a great image of him as well:

I promised further photos from the Western Valley of the Kings - here's one showing the depth of the excavation down to bedrock.  There's at least one more but I've had a run in with bureacucratic offcialdom today so I'm just going to watch some Yes Prime Minsister and maybe some Buffy to cheer myself up! 

(Again, to save bandwidth I've not shown a hi-res.  If there's something you'd like to magnify shout and I'll put up the orginal.)