News from the Valley of the Kings

Marianne Luban has posted a couple of interesting pieces in her blog.  In the first "More on Substitution Portriats", Marianne continues with her theme about the Face of Tutankhamun which has attracted quite a lot of comment on this blog.

The second piece looks at the regnal count of King Hatchepsut.  Marianne's theory is that Hatchepsut backdated the start of her reign by three years to the death of Thutmosis I, effectively obliterating the reign of Thutmosis II as well as denying the later Tutmosis III the throne. 

The third consecutive season of archaeological investigations at the funerary temple of Thutmosis III , on the west bank at Luxor, started on October 2nd, until December 17th.

One of the most interesting discoveries this season was a tomb with a corridor, shaft, and a sealed funerary chamber. Several burial jars and plates were found inside the chamber in a good state of preservation, allowing the tomb to be dated to the Second Intermediate Period.

I don't believe I have promoted this site before.  As the site says:

The excavation, restoration, conservation and site management of the Temple of Thutmosis III, in Luxor’s West Bank first began in 2008 through a collaborative project between the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquity and the Academy of Fine Arts, Seville-Spain.

The team is directed by Dr. Myriam Seco Álvarez and Dr. Atia Radwan. Both coordinate the investigations at the Temple of Millions of Years, built by a pharaoh considered to be the “Napoleon” of Ancient Egypt and among the most important pharaohs of the New Kingdom.