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Very nice pillows, for starters.

"No idea, I'm sorry," Elsie van Rooij, an expert on ancient textiles, said, when asked why it was that some burial worker had stuffed five pillows into the child-size coffin she was examining. Coffins usually hold bodies. She had never seen anything like it. Naturally, that pleased her.

"A tomb should be mysterious," she said.

After three months of painstaking work since the February discovery, with five of the coffins opened, no mummies have been found. So there is a chance that this is not a tomb at all, but rather a cache for used embalming materials.

But there is one big coffin left to open — the most tantalizing one, sealed, wedged into the back of the space and supported by pillows at its head and feet, with the kind of care that could suggest that someone important is inside.

The American Egyptologists who are working here plan to open it, hoping not only to see a mummy but to solve the many mysteries of the new find. They may also shatter a long-held belief that there is nothing important left to find in the Valley of the Kings.

"If it will be a mummy, it will be a big discovery," said Mansour Boraik, the Egyptian government's head of antiquities at Luxor.

[The theory that there might be a mummy in the last coffin got a boost on May 24: a small gilded sarcophagus, of a quality that could suggest royalty, was found under the pillows in the small coffin she was examining.]

If there is a mummy, Dr. Boraik's favorite choice of who it might be is Ankhesenpaaten, King Tutankhamen's widow. One of the few pieces of writing found at the bottom of the shaft, on a broken seal, is a part of her name.

"What happened to this widow, we don't know," he said.

Hopes aside, there has never been any suggestion that the new discovery, called KV-63, has anywhere near the significance of KV-62, the last tomb uncovered, in 1922. That one, famously, held the mummy of Tutankhamen and one of the greatest troves of Egyptian artifacts ever found. The valley had given up nothing major since.

The new find is only a few feet away from King Tut's tomb. But it is just one small and unadorned room, at the bottom of a shaft that the American team, led by Otto Schaden, an Egyptologist who leads a project with the University of Memphis, discovered last year.

He had been digging around some ancient workmen's huts near the tomb of the pharaoh Ay, the last king of the 18th dynasty and the life's work of Dr. Schaden. On the last day of the dig, in the last possible place, he came across what he now calls "an unusual situation."

"Lo and behold, there was a dark layer where there should have been bedrock," said Dr. Schaden, 68, who smokes a pipe, has a goatee, carries lots of pens in his dusty vest and so looks very satisfyingly like an Egyptologist. "So we knew something was up."

The team reached the bottom of the shaft, some 18 feet down, in February. First hopes were extraordinarily high, buoyed by 28 clay jars, meticulously sealed, ringed around seven coffins, in bad shape from termite damage but each with gorgeous face masks.

Dr. Schaden was cautious, but some experts speculated that this might even be the tomb of Nefertiti, the beautiful and ambitious wife of Akhenaten, the most enigmatic pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, who ruled from 1352 B.C. to 1336 B.C.

The style of the shaft, the type of pottery and a wine label, identical to one found in King Tut's tomb, all confirmed for the team that this place dates from the 18th dynasty. But opening the jars and coffins produced not mummies or body parts but puzzles.

The child's coffin contained pillows of exceptionally fine cotton, and Dr. Boraik said he did not know of pillows ever being stuffed inside coffins. Four of the other coffins contained not human remains, as is common, but a few top-quality alabaster jars, embalming salts, linen, what looked like a stone cornice and loads of broken pottery and dirt.

The signs pointed to the room being a cache for embalming materials but there seemed also a strange rush: Egyptian coffins are often covered with resin to preserve them, but in this case it seemed to have been slathered on sloppily. Several of the sealed jars, which also contained broken pottery, were smashed and the bits stuffed inside the coffins.

"Why they took jars that were already filled, broke them and put them in coffins — that's strange," he said. The floor, too, was scattered with broken pottery.

Again, Dr. Schaden resists much speculation — and the answer, at any rate, may come soon when the team finally breaks the seal of the last coffin and looks inside. But he has not ruled out some ancient foul play.

"If there is anyone tucked inside that last coffin, it's probably someone they wanted to hide," he said.

Dr. Schaden does not believe the absence of mummies so far can be explained by tomb robbers. "If a tomb is plundered, there is usually an arm here, a finger there, the skull," he said, "because they dismember the bodies looking for trinkets."

Unlike the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, the excavation of KV-63 has been followed by filmmakers. A documentary about the work, "Egypt's New Tomb Revealed," will be shown June 4 on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Dr. Boraik puts the probability of a mummy inside the coffin at 70 percent. The fine pillows and alabaster jars, the broken seal with the fragment of a name and the arrangement of the jars in what he said seemed a protective position all suggested that this was not a mere embalming cache.

"I hope this coffin will solve the mystery," he said.

 

02/06/06

Mystery tomb could hold Tutankhamen's widow
It has been 84 years since Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings revealed its last great riches – the fabulous gold of Tutankhamen's tomb.
Now archaeologists believe they have stumbled across one final secret: The mummified remains of the boy king's widow buried 3000 years ago.
In a mysterious shaft less than 15m from Tutankhamen's burial ground, US archaeologists found seven coffins. 
They believe one they have not yet been able to open may contain the remains of Queen Ankhesenpaaten. 
The tomb – found by accident by Memphis University team leader Dr Otto Schaden – contained seven coffins stacked closely together and ringed by 28 clay jars, each decorated with a beautiful face mask. The coffins were buried about 1320BC.
A child-sized coffin – one of five so far raised – contained a small gilded ornamental sarcophagus of a quality that was usually buried only with royalty.
Ankhesenpaaten's link to the tomb was further underlined when a coffin seal was found with part of her name on it. 
"I think there is a 70 per cent chance that Ankhesenpaaten's mummy is in that last coffin," Egyptian antiquities head Dr Mansour Boraik said.
"If she is, it will be a major find because very little is known about her." 

Fuente: Daily Telegraph

 

27/02/06
KV-63: acertijos del Antiguo Egipto 
El Valle de los Reyes, alguna vez conocido como el "Lugar de la Verdad", es un sitio a la vez de muerte y majestuosidad, con sus cañadas imponentes y su sol calcinante, donde los faraones y reyes del Antiguo Egipto buscaban la inmortalidad. 
Ramsés II y Tutankamón fueron enterrados aquí, pero también un misterioso grupo de nobles, cuya tumba fue descubierta a principios del mes de febrero. BBC Mundo ha venido a averiguar en qué consiste el hallazgo. 
Un trenecito verde y amarillo me lleva hasta la entrada del Valle de los Reyes, donde turistas de todas partes del mundo entran y salen de las tumbas, acompañados de guías multilingües. 
Yo vengo con Ali, un empleado del Consejo Supremo de Antigüedades de Egipto, quien me lleva directamente al lugar de las excavaciones. 
La KV- 63 
Las siglas corresponden a Valle de los Reyes en inglés (King's Valley) y el número indica que esta tumba viene después de la KV-62, mejor conocida como la de Tutankamón. 
Tengo una cita con el descubridor, Otto Schaden, de la Universidad de Memphis, Estados Unidos, quien emerge de un pasadizo vertical por una escalera empinada y prende su pipa antes de saludarme. 
Es una sensación poco común el dar con un monumento que nadie ha visto en más de 3.200 años y eso es parte de la emoción de ser arqueólogo 
"El hallazgo se dio en diferentes etapas; la primera cuando dimos con la compuerta el año pasado, y la última ahora, que finalmente pudimos limpiarlo y dar con lo que hay dentro", le dijo a BBC Mundo. 
"Tenemos unos siete ataúdes y aún no hemos podido ver las inscripciones, por lo que no sabemos el rango de los muertos. Hay varias vasijas y pensamos que contienen ofrendas alimenticias, pero lo sabremos bien dentro de tres semanas". 
Le señalo que su descubrimiento, el 5 de febrero, significa que se rompió un hechizo de 84 años, cuando Howard Carter descubrió la tumba de Tutankamón. 
"Es especial por varias razones", responde con entusiasmo. "Es muy satisfactorio haber encontrado la primera tumba desde 1922; es una sensación poco común el dar con un monumento que nadie ha visto en más de 3.200 años y eso es parte de la emoción de ser arqueólogo". 
"El otro aspecto es el significado histórico, que conoceremos pronto y esperamos satisfaga a todo mundo", añade, mientras exhala el humo perfumado. 
El Más Allá, abajo 
Volteo a ver el agujero por donde entran y salen los obreros egipcios, vestidos con la tradicional túnica (galabeya) y turbante, que ayudan en la labor de limpieza. 
Llega mi turno para descender y, como había acordado con las autoridades, debo abandonar en la superficie la cámara fotográfica de la BBC. 
Para entrar a la tumba hay que bajar por una empinada escalera de madera, de unos 6 metros de profundidad, cuyas paredes están rodeadas de costales de piedra y arena. Medio minuto después me encuentro abajo... Polvo y oscuridad parcial. 
Dos fotógrafos de la Universidad de Memphis y dos obreros egipcios me dan la bienvenida. Al fondo de la cámara oscura, distingo los siete sarcófagos. 
Tres de ellos están en un estado de deterioro muy avanzado. "La acción de las termitas, u hormigas blancas, acumulada durante siglos", comenta Schaden. 
Un rostro del Antiguo Egipto 
Uno de los sarcófagos está por desintegrarse, pero la cara permanece intacta. Es una hermosa mujer de cabello negro, con grandes ojos y cejas delineadas con el maquillaje tradicional del Antiguo Egipto. 
La tumba estaba a sólo cinco metros de la de Tutankamón. 
De otro sarcófago parcialmente abierto, alcanzo a ver un trozo de tela café, probablemente de parte del material utilizado para la momificación. 
Hay también un ataúd de medio metro, que corresponde a un niño o niña. 
Hace dos semanas el ejército de periodistas que llegó aquí a cubrir el hallazgo sólo pudo hacerlo a través de una rendija de 30 centímetros. 
La pared que obstruía el acceso ha sido tirada recientemente por el equipo liderado por Schaden y me siento privilegiado de estar tan cerca de los ataúdes negros, que reposan aquí desde hace tres milenios. 
"El que ríe último, ríe mejor", pienso. 
Como si leyera mi pensamiento, Otto Schaden exclama: "Es cierto que la tumba no tiene oro como otras, y las termitas nos han dificultado la labor, pero es una tumba poco común. De hecho, mientras respondemos a todas las preguntas, no se permitirá el acceso a turistas". 
Más acertijos 
En las inmediaciones del Valle de los Reyes, me he dado cita con José Manuel Galán, egiptólogo y director de la misión española en Luxor. 
Cada día hay más interrogantes. ¿Qué hacen los nobles allí?, ¿quién los ha enterrado?, ¿por qué los ataúdes están como abandonados? 
Su trabajo de excavación en Drabu el Naga consiste en dos tumbas de la dinastía XVIII, o sea durante el reino de Hatshepsut, alrededor del 1500 a.C. 
Él también ha visto la KV-63: "La tumba probablemente es de finales de la dinastía XVIII, contemporánea al famoso rey Tutankamón, debido a que los sarcófagos son de color negro con las facciones de la cara e inscripciones en amarillo, típicos de esa época". 
Le pregunto cuál es la importancia de la K-63 para la comunidad de egiptólogos. 
"Hace muchos años que no se producía un hallazgo importante, y hoy en día nos dedicamos principalmente a la conservación y restauración", responde. 
"Además parece ser un enterramiento de nobles y no de reyes, pero lo cierto es que cada día hay más interrogantes. ¿Qué hacen los nobles allí?, ¿quién los ha enterrado?, ¿por qué los ataúdes están como abandonados?". 
"Esperamos una clave de los arqueólogos de la Universidad de Memphis en un par de meses", dice el egiptólogo español. 
Pozo sin fondo 
Egipto tiene aún muchas sorpresas escondidas bajo sus arenas, y para muchos es como un pozo arqueológico sin fondo. 
Es como bucear en una sociedad que existió hace 3.500 años y eso es impresionante 
Pero el pozo no sólo encierra tesoros. 
Eso le parece fascinante al egiptólogo José Manuel Galán. 
"Lo bueno de Egipto es que hay mucha información interesante, inscripciones sobre la vida cotidiana y las relaciones personales". 
"Es como bucear en una sociedad que existió hace 3.500 años y eso es impresionante". 
Fuente: BBC World

 

17/02/06

Face to face with ancient royals

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Click to view caption

Enigmatic discovery

Last Friday was a hot, sunny day in the Valley of the Kings, and no less than 50 journalists, photographers, TV anchors and directors were waiting with heightened expectations near a large pit located just across the pathway to Tutankhamun's tomb. They were following the progress being made by Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and his Memphis University colleague Otto Shaden as they uncovered the first intact tomb to be found in the Valley of the Kings in 84 years.

As the two Egyptologists entered the pit for a preliminary view of its contents, the journalists were barred from following. Anxious to see what lay beneath, they reacted angrily, but a few minutes later they were permitted to enter the pit one by one to allow for the shortage of space. To access the tomb's entrance, everyone had to leap over a dozen huge stone blocks and then negotiate a five- metre-long wooden ladder. I found it hard to contend with these obstacles, but coming face to face with the royal mummies quickly caused my sufferings to melt away.

Through a 30-centimetre large hole it was possible to see five wooden anthropoid sarcophagi with painted faces resting undisturbed in a plain, rectangular rock-hewn tomb. The first coffin, which had toppled over and was facing the door, showed the painted face of a beautiful woman with full makeup and thin, arched eyebrows, black kohl-lined eyes and black hair styled in a blunt cut. The gold pattern of a thick necklace was also visible, but the lower half of the sarcophagi had rotted and broken. The face reminded me of the one painted on the coffin of Pharaoh Amenhotep I exhibited in the royal mummy room at the Egyptian Museum. In one corner was another coffin, which seemed to have been partially opened so that the brown cloth below the lid was visible, most probably part of the mummy's wrapping. At the back was the silhouette of the other three coffins, their faces staring upwards and their hands folded on their chests.

Almost two dozen alabaster and clay jars sealed with ancient Egyptian seals, some of which were broken, were lined up next to the sarcophagi. Although the exact date of the find is not yet certain, Egyptologists believe them to be some 3,000 years old and dating from the late 18th Dynasty.

"They may be mummies of kings or queens or nobles, we don't know yet," Hawass said, adding: "They were definitely connected to the royal family or had the favour of the king, otherwise they would not have been buried in the Valley of the Kings since it was prohibited for just anyone to come and make his tomb there."

Hawass hopes that the mission will find hieroglyphs on the coffins that will identify the mummies. He told reporters that the jars, the contents of which were yet unknown, were not canopic jars but might have contained food and drink to sustain the deceased on the journey to the afterlife.

Mansour Borayek, supervisor of Luxor antiquities, described the discovery as extremely important since it could reveal more about the mysterious Valley of the Kings and what it was really like. It also breaks the long-held belief that there is nothing left to dig in the valley. "It is proof that excavation in the Valley of the Kings is not exhausted, and there is more to offer archaeologists that is just waiting to be discovered," Borayek told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Who were these people? What did they do? Where were their original burials? And why were they buried here, in such a cache? These are among the perplexing questions waiting to be answered after further excavations are carried out.

Hawass told the Weekly that the vessels found in the cache had been arranged haphazardly, suggesting that the burials took place in haste. This was more likely, he continued, than that the cache was used as a storeroom for sarcophagi moved later from other tombs, either by priests to protect them from thieves, or by thieves to be stashed before being completely removed.

This is the fourth cache to be discovered in Luxor. The first was stumbled upon sometime before 1887 by the Abdel-Rassoul family, who found 40 hidden intact royal mummies. The second was the cache found in 1891 containing 100 sarcophagi of priests of Amun, while the third discovery was made in 1898 with 12 royal mummies being uncovered inside the tomb of Amenhotep II.

"It is a dream come true," Shaden says. "It is just so amazing to find an intact tomb 84 years after [Tutankhamun]." He says that after 13 years of working on tombs which have been known for a long time and had been partly cleared, and following other excavators, his mission finally had something new to add to the Valley of the Kings.

Shaden said a foretaste of what might be to come had been found last year as his team was working on the neighbouring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th-Dynasty pharaoh. While digging outside this tomb the team stumbled upon the remains of workmen's huts and noted a depression in the ground which they believed could be the top of a shaft leading to a tomb. When this year's archaeological season began three weeks ago, the team uncovered the intact tomb after removing the stone-block doorway at the bottom of a 10-metre-deep shaft.

Shaden believes that since it was an honour to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, these mummies belonged to relatives of the king, perhaps a brother-in-law, a gardener or another minor person in the palace who was given special honour.

Sarcophagi carry the names and all information about the person buried, but Shaden adds that so far the team has not been able to enter the burial chamber to examine them.

Hawass believes that further excavation will lead to more revelations about who these people were, and says that within three weeks more details will be announced. These may also specify details about eight pits the team has located inside the tomb, which were possibly used by Ancient Egyptians for entry and exit.

 

 

09/02/06

New tomb discovered in Valley by American archaeologists 

- Nueva tumba descubierta en el Valle por arqueólogos americanos - (Opinión de Kent Weeks)
American archaeologists have made the first discovery of a new tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since King Tutankhamun's was uncovered in 1922, Egypt's antiquities chief announced. The 18th Dynasty tomb included five mummies in intact sarcophagi with colored funerary masks along with more than 20 large storage jars, sealed with pharaonic seals, Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement. 
Still unknown is who the tomb belonged to. U.S. archeologist Kent Weeks, who was not involved in the discovery but has seen photographs of the tomb's interior, said its appearance suggested it did not belong to a king. "It could be the tomb of a king's wife or son, or of a priest or court official," he told The Associated Press on Thursday. 
No matter who is in the new tomb, its discovery shatters the nearly century-old perception that there was nothing left to discover in the Valley of the Kings, where it had long been believed that the 62 previously known tombs were all there was, said Weeks, who made the last major discovery in the valley. "It clearly proves that the Valley of the Kings is still not exhausted," he said. "There are problably more tombs to be found in it." 
Weeks made the last major discovery in the valley. In 1995, he opened a previously known tomb and found it was far larger than expected: more than 120 chambers, which he determined were tombs for sons of the pharoah Ramses II. The new tomb is a single chamber, meaning it was likely intended for a single mummy, he said. Other sarcophagi or even all of them may have been put in at a later time. 
"The objects in the tomb don't necessarily date to the original tomb. It is not unknown for a tomb to be used as a storeroom for other materials," he said. "The objects could be 200 to 400 years later than the orginial cutting of the tomb. Some could be original, some may have been introduced later." 
It is known that in later dynasties, high priests fearing grave robbers took mummies from their original sites and stashed them in other tombs or locations or even after the pharoanic area, mummies were moved either to protect them or to hide them for later theft, he said. 
Hawass did not specify who was believed buried in the tomb. The antiquities chief was scheduled to visit the site Friday to announce more details. A University of Memphis team of archaeologists led by Otto Schaden found the tomb four meters (yards) below the ground, buried under rubble and stones five meters (yards) away from Tut's tomb, the statement by Hawass said. 
Inside the rectangular tomb, the five wooden sarcophagi were surrounded by the jars, which appeared placed haphazardly, suggesting the burial was completed quickly, the statement by Hawass said. The 18th Dynasty, from around 1500 BC to 1300 BC, was the first dynasty of the New Kingdom, the pharaonic empire than lasted until around 1000 BC and made its capital in Thebes the present day city of Luxor, 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Cairo. The Valley of the Kings was used as a burial ground throughout the New Kingdom, though contrary to its name not all the tombs are of kings, reports the AP.

Fuente: Pravda

 

11/02/06

Secretos bajo el desierto 
Un nuevo hallazgo prueba que en el Valle de los Reyes, en Egipto, aún quedan tesoros escondidos
La teoría de que en el Valle de los Reyes de Luxor no queda nada más por descubrir ha sido rotundamente desmentida. El hallazgo de una pequeña tumba intacta con cinco sarcófagos en el interior demuestra que las entrañas del desierto donde fueron enterrados gran parte de los faraones del Antiguo Egipto esconden todavía grandes secretos. Hacía 84 años que no se descubría una tumba de la época faraónica sin profanar. La última fue la del mítico Tutankamon que en 1922 abrió al mundo el arqueólogo británico Howard Carter.
La cámara funeraria que un equipo de arqueólogos estadounidenses ha descubierto en el Valle de los Reyes está situada no lejos de la de Tutankamon. Además de los sarcófagos, todos ellos de madera y decorados con máscaras funerarias de varios colores, los científicos han encontrado una veintena de jarras de gran tamaño. Según los primeros exámenes, las ánforas indican que la tumba data de la Dinastía 18, entre los años 1.500 y 1.300 a.c.
MIEMBROS DE LA CORTE
A esta dinastía pertenecen, entre otros faraones, Akenaton, conocido como el rey hereje, que estuvo casado con la enigmática Nefertiti, y su sucesor, el legendario y siempre mediático Tutankamon. "No creo que se trate de la tumba de un faraón. Tal vez sea de miembros de la corte real", dijo ayer Edwin Brook, miembro del equipo de la Universidad de Menfis que halló la pequeña cámara, de apenas 15 metros cuadrados de superficie por uno de altura.
El jefe del Consejo Supremo de Antigüedades de Egipto, Zahi Hawas, no descartó, sin embargo, que alguna de la momias pertenezca a algún rey del Antiguo Egipto. "No olvidemos que en el Valle de los Reyes se enterraba sólo a gente importante, por eso no es descartable que se trate de faraones o miembros de sus familias", dijo Zawas.
La tumba está situada a unos seis metros de profundidad y, según reconoció ayer el equipo de arqueólogos estadounidenses, la encontraron de pura casualidad, mientras llevaban a cabo excavaciones alrededor de la tumba del faraón Amenmesse. "Fue maravilloso, asombroso e inesperado hallar una tumba intacta aquí", explicó Brook.
El equipo estadounidense, dirigido por el arqueólogo Otto Schaden, tiene previsto seguir trabajando durante los próximos cinco meses, antes de que el fuerte calor del verano llegue a Luxor. Hay mucho trabajo que hacer, como descifrar los jeroglíficos de los sarcófagos, que, en general, se encuentran en buen estado, y extraer con sumo cuidado, cuando las condiciones así lo requieran, las momias para que sean estudiadas a fondo, con pruebas de ADN.
Para muchos, este descubrimiento puede ser un buen presagio. El sueño de todo egiptólogo es hallar la tumba de la reina Nefertiti, que según algunos especialistas se halla en algún lugar del Valle de los Reyes. Todavía quedan espacios por explorar. Así lo ha demostrado, al menos, el equipo estadounidense.

Fuente: El Periódico de Cataluña.
   

* Noticias anteriores:

 

Arriba
Descubrimientos - Egipto hasta Junio 2006
Nueva tumba en el Valle de los Reyes KV 63
Descubrimientos - Egipto - Enero a Mayo 2006
Descubrimientos - Egipto (Hasta Diciembre 2005)
Descubrimientos - Egipto (hasta Mayo 2005)
Descubrimientos I - Egipto 2002
Descubrimientos II - Egipto 2003
Descubrimientos - Egipto 2004 - Enero / Mayo
Descubrimientos - Egipto 2004 - Junio / Diciembre
Entrevista-Nueva cámara en pirámide Keops