News from the Valley of the Kings

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.

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".

With massive thanks to the eagle eyes of David Krueger, Otto Schaden has posted an update and a request for donations to help meet the cost of the 2010 season.

A mud seal bearing the impression of a cartouche of Menkheperre (Thutmosis III) was found in Pot 3 in March of 2006. *A photo of the seal can be found under the 'Photos ~ 2009' tab. [Kate - To find it you have to expand and view the descriptions - to save time it's this photo]

Dr Schaden  theorises that the seal could be:

       It could have been [Men]kheper-Re  (Thutmosis III) 

       or, [Men]khepr[u-]re   (Thutmosis. IV)

       or, [Neb]kheper-Re  (Tut)

       or, Kheper-[khepru]re  (Ay)

I'll let you read for yourself which Dr Shcaden believes is most likely.  There's much more new material on the site including 30 new photos.  For instance there is a beautiful blue bowl.  I've been very impressed with the communications from the KV-63 team.  I wish they would put the official reports on the site rather than publishing them only on academic journals but it's still a very good standard of communication.

There's also a link for Susan Osgood's site. She is an arist who has been working to record some of the artefects.

Otto Shaden has posted the final update on the 2009 season in KV63.

As mentioned in the last update, Coffin A’s fragments proved to be quite interesting. Though very fragmentary and fragile because of termite damage, some key texts could be recovered from under the resin coating….the title “Royal Nurse” ( mn’t nsw ) and the name ‘Iny’. The longest translatable connected text was on the top cross band, left side: ‘Revered, (may) I see Re in the sky and drink water from the pool [ … ].’ Conspicuous by its absence, the deceased is never identified as ‘Osiris’ and the usual deities are not cited. The one example (quoted above) where we have the usual “revered” there is no qualification such as ‘revered by Anubis’ etc. This lack of the traditional deities strongly suggests that this coffin was probably
fashioned during the reign of Akhenaton when many of the traditional deities
were abandoned.

Many will be very interested that this coffin has been dated to the Amarna period. That makes it very rare and it encourages the hope that more material from that period may yet be found in the Valley of the Kings. There's more on the KV63 site, so it's worth reading.

I mentioned this bed in my post on 9th February, but there is now a very good picture on the KV63 site, along with new photos of the conservation of the coffins. I have shown a copy here as I believe the SCA was handing out copies of this photo for press use so I think it is OK to show it here. The copy on the KV63 site is slightly higher resolution, and the photos of the coffins make a visit to that site worthwhile anyway.

As mentioned in my 7 February update we discovered a very unique wooden bed inside Jar #13. In addition to finding the bed in the jar we also found three wooden boards (wrapped in linen) with 4 “prongs” or “legs” which may have served as supports for the bed. We now have enough such “legs” for four bed supports, but only 3 wrapped boards (ca. 50 cm in length) have been uncovered.

During a brief visit to KV-10/KV-63 on March 1st by Dr. Zahi Hawass, he called attention to one of our SCA conservators, Amany Nashed, for her good work on the restoration of the bed. Dr. Hawass also suggested we try placing the bed on the supports--- which we did the following day and they appear to be a good fit. The KV-63 website already has a few images of the bed and supports posted (*plus some new ones added today) but more images will be made available soon.

Jane Akshar's blog carries an update from Otto Schaden that isn't on the main KV-63 site. (The good doctor is suffering from slow computer links in Luxor.)

I think by now I don't believe it is fair (and in many cases legal) to copy large sections of text. It's quite a long report so if you are interested, you can read it all on Jane's blog. For me, these are the most interesting paragraphs:

As the first resin came off of Coffin E’s lid, it appeared we had the name of a woman, Btau/Butau, a fairly common woman’s name already in the Middle Kingdom and into the New Kingdom --- but after cleaning resin off the texts on the box, it became clear that the name included the “hnwt” (mistress) and was thus Henut-wadjbu, a common woman’s name in the new kingdom.

And ...

We have only begun dealing with the resin on some of the very poorly preserved sides of the box of Coffin A, but despite the bad condition of much of the wood, we have found some interesting texts. After further cleaning we will send a report to Dr. Zahi Hawass and later provide more details in our next Update.

It's interesting that Coffin E is inscribed for a fairly low status woman - quite unexpected in the Valley of the Kings. It's interesting to speculate what it might be doing there. Was it being re-labelled for somebody more senior? Did the Valley of the Kings also serve as the embalmers' headquarters for the Tombs of the Nobles as well?

It's also tantalising to wonder what inscriptions have been found on Coffin A.

Kate

Following on from the previous post, the same reader carried on with a further interesting line of thought, drawing on two books (one of which I think I may have - but can't find):

1. “The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, The Tomb, The Royal Treasure – By Nicholas Reeves” published in 1990
   


2. ”the Discovery of The Tomb of Tutankhamen – By Howard Carter & A. C. Mace” published 1977.

This is what what the reader had to say

There is an interesting photo of the same area [Kate: ie the central excavation] taken in 1921, showing the excavation in front of the entrance of Ramesses VI (KV9). The photo in the first book is on page #51 and on page #87 in the latter. The photo shows excavation pits on either side of the entrance to KV9. But in these photos, they show that Howard stopped digging over the location of the “KV64-Feature 5 of Nicholas Reeves” radar hit. It is also interesting that in Howard’s book, page 82 -87, he describes the 1921 dig clearing in front of KV9 by saying that, “In the course of the season’s work we cleared a considerable part of the upper layers of this area, and advanced our excavations right up to the foot of the tomb of Rameses VI. Here we came on a series of workmen’s hut built over masses of boulders, the latter usually indicating the the Valley the near proximity of a tomb. Our natural impulse was to enlarge our clearing in the direction (going north), but by doing this we should have cut off all access to the tomb of Rameses above, to visitors one of the most popular tombs in the whole Valley. We determined to await a more convenient opportunity.” On the following pages, Howard waits for the start of the next year’s digging season. This time however, he starts his digging from the north to south and finds Tutankhamun’s tomb. Thus, by starting in the north to south direction , on the opposite side of the entrance to KV9, and not pick
up going south to north from the previous season, he may have left KV64 to be
discovered in our day. I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

I confess that when I first heard Nicholas Reeves say that Feature 5 was a unopened tomb and announced it as KV64, I felt he was being a bit previous. With the help of these comments, and reading the recent posts by Nicholas on his website, I am increasingly confident that he has called it correctly. As the remarks above make clear, Howart Carter found KV62 before he could excavate above ARTP Feature 5. I am also now pretty sure that the radar image does indeed show a chamber and that by the middle of January the central area excavation hadn't yet investigated the area above the feature. However, if this was more than a shaft tomb, we cannot be sure where the entrance may lie.

It is now well understood that piles of boulders can be evidence of a tomb in the vicinity, and that tombs can be obscured by huts sited above them. The huts in the central area excavation suggest it is a ripe area for a tomb; however, they are very close to KV63 and it may be that Otto Schaden has already found the tomb they may be associated with.

Dr Ott0 Schaden has posted again to say the season is getting underway. There's no new photos or substantial news yet. Thanks to Andie Byrne at Egyptology News for picking this up.

Otto Shaden has posted another update on the official KV63 site. It's short so it's easiest to repeat the first few sentences here:

We are opening jars and finding numerous intriguing objects plus more mud seals. Some of which are complete. Conservators are working on some of the objects that we have found in the jars. Will be able to disclose more information and post photos once we get clearance from Dr. Hawass so please bear with us.

The rest of the posts indicates which member of the team are now on site. As soon as I notice that Otto has published new photos or provide information on the contents of the jars, I'll post so that you can pop over to the KV-63 site.

Otto Shaden has posted a quick update on the KV63 site announcing the start of the 2009 season.

Our 2009 Season has begun...Dr. Otto Schaden safely arrived in Luxor and
officially opened KV-10 and KV-63 on the 6th of January.In Otto's words....KV-10
(where everything is stored) is 'very dusty!' but the cleaning crew are already hard at work.

Thus far, there is not much to report however we are happy to announce that Inspector Ezzat has been reassigned to us. For those of you who may not recall, Ezzat was the original SCA inspector assigned to us when KV-63 was discovered in February 2006. We are very glad to have him back.

The rest of the team will begin to arrive by the end of this week. More soon.....

If you aren't familiar with the KV63 site then it's worth exploring as there are some particularly fine photographs of the dig, finds and conseration work.