Ancient Egypt ppt

Almost literally as I was putting the finishing touches to the last KV63 article came news of another possible previously unknown tomb in the Valley of the Kings.. Adelbegan his career w

October/November 2006

VOLUME7, NO2: ISSUENO 38

EDITOR:Robert B Partridge, 6 Branden DriveKnutsford, Cheshire, WA16 8EJ, UKTel 01565 754450Email ancientegyptmag@aol.com

ASSISTANTEDITOR:Peter Phillips

CONSULTANTEDITOR:Professor Rosalie David, OBE

EDITORIALASSISTANTS:Victor Blunden, Peter Robinson, Hilary Wilson

EGYPTCORRESPONDENT

Ayman Wahby Taher

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FRONTCOVER DESIGNED BY: David Soper

Main image: Face of a coffin from tomb KV63 Photo: courtesy of the

University of Memphis Mission

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The New Tomb

in the Valley of the Kings

The fourth update on the recent discovery and thefinal clearance of the small chamber

ANOTHER new tomb in the Valley

of the Kings?

Nicholas Reeves reveals the latest news on the

possibility of another tomb in the Royal Valley

The Rekhyt Bird

Kenneth Griffin explains how the many

representa-tions of the lapwing are much more than a simpleimage of a bird; they have a more significant meaning

36

Per Mesut: for younger readers

In this edition, Hilary Wilson looks at

pomegranates

54

My schedule of articles for inclusion in AEwas

completely disrupted this year by the discovery

of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings, tombKV63

I am not really complaining, for I was as fascianated as

anyone to find out what the contents of this tomb might

be Thanks to the splendid cooperation of members of

the University of Memphis Team and with images

sup-plied by them and the Egyptian Supreme Council of

Antiquities, I have been especially pleased to have been

able to include a total of four articles in consecutive

edi-tions, telling readers of the progress of the excavation

The fourth and final account of the discovery and

clearance of the tomb is included in this edition, and I

am surprised to find that this means we have devoted a

total of twenty-five pages to the discovery, undoubtedly

the best and fullest account of the find so far, and

sec-ond-best only to any official and more formal book

pub-lished by the team (in the not too distant future we hope)

Work on the contents of the tomb will continue when

the new season begins and if there are any new

develop-ments, I hope to be able to bring them to you I am sure

you will have found the articles of interest My main

frus-tration was the time delay in getting the latest news to

you, which is always the problem with a bi-monthly

pub-lication date

Almost literally as I was putting the finishing touches to

the last KV63 article came news of another possible

previously unknown tomb in the Valley of the Kings

Nicholas Reeves, Director of the Amarna Royal Tombs

Project has written an article on the information

avail-able at this stage The prospects are exciting, but also, as

you will see from his article, challenging The news has

already caused some interest and debate and rather than

make my own comments here, I will let you read both

the KV63 article and the article by Nicholas Reeves first

and add my comments and observations (for what they

are worth) after No doubt AE readers will have their

own views

I know some of you have noticed (and commented

favourably upon) the fact that our “News from Egypt”

section has been spreading over an increasing number of

pages in recent issues

I was squeezing Ayman’s reports into a fixed and

lim-ited number of pages, and they really warranted more

space I have now decided that the quality and amount

of information from Ayman deserves as much space as I

can manage The number of pages allocated is not now

set in concrete and will vary depending on the amount of

news and photos available

duced some remarkable discoveries, so we wish all theexpeditions well for another productive season

Whilst foreign missions only work in Egypt for tively short periods, the work of the Egyptian SupremeCouncil of Antiquities is an all-year-round operation andoften the opportunity is taken in the quiet season, whentourists are limited, to carry out much routine mainte-nance and inspection of the sites It is always fascinatingwhen returning to Egypt to spot the many changes andimprovements being made

rela-You will have all read about the huge amount of civilengineering and archaeological work being undertaken

in the centre of Luxor and around the temples of Luxorand Karnak Most of the work is due to be completed bythe start of the tourist season I am looking forward toseeing what has been going on when I make my plannedvisits at the end of this year

One of these visits will be our magazine trip to Cairo

in September (this issue had to be completed before thetrip, so I will bring you news of it in the December issue)

If this trip goes well (and there is no reason to assumeotherwise) we will consider other trips in the future, pos-sibly a week in Luxor

Prices for trips to Egypt and to Luxor in particularhave been remarkably cheap this summer and I know anumber of people who have taken advantage of this Forthose willing to put up with the building works in Luxorand the very high temperatures, the rewards are great,notably being able to visit the main sites without thehuge numbers of visitors there in the peak season.Tourist numbers have increased dramatically, althoughon-going concerns about the political stability of coun-ries around Egypt may have influenced the decision ofsome to travel at this time It is, however, nice to see thesites full of people, and if you happen to be there at abusy time you just need to bear in mind that most groupsspend a surprisingly short time there, and it is quite easy

to find some peace and quiet at the larger sites

RP From the EDITOR

Detailed Map of Thebes

Maps and Time-line

by Peter Robinson.

Periods

Dynasties F Pharaohs

News of an award

Congratulation to Professor Gaballa Ali Gaballa,

who has just been awarded one of the highesthonours in Egypt, the 2005 “State Prize forSocial Sciences” This is awarded by the Higher Council

of the Supreme Council of Culture

P r o f e s s o rGaballa workedfor many years atthe University ofCairo and from

1997 to 2002 wasthe SecretaryGeneral of theSupreme Council

of Antiquities He

is now a Professor

at the University

of Cairo and is aspecial consultantand advisor to theMinister ofCulture

The award is inrecognition of hismany years ofwork, especially inthe area of cul-ture and antiqui-ties

British Museum Colloquium

and Sackler Lecture, 2006

If you are ever planning a holiday in the UK and

want to guarantee a sunny week, then you can do

lit-tle better than choose the same dates as the annual

British Museum Colloquium and Sackler Lecture, held

each year in mid-July, which invariably enjoys (or suffers

from) the hottest and sunniest weather of the year

This year was no exception; on one of the days

London experienced its hottest July temperature on

record The air-conditioned lecture theatre was

proba-bly the best place to be for the evening lecture and

two-Professor Gaballa Ali Gaballa of the University ofCairo spoke on the work of Ahmed Fakhry, an Egyptianarchaeologist who pioneered research in the desert andwas amongst the first to realise the importance of thesites, as well as the problems they faced

Tony Mills and other members of the Dakhleh OasisProject covered their long-term work at the Oasis, andother speakers covered communication between theOases and the Nile valley

It was clear from the presentations that, far from beingprovincial backwaters, the Oases were an importantpart of Egypt; over the last few years, our knowledge ofthe area has increased dramatically

Many of the sites are remote, some are being aged by simple erosion, others are in close proximity tomodern towns and villages and are in danger of beinglost beneath modern buildings, and others are beingdeliberately damaged and vandalised

dam-It was, however, in the closing remarks by RudolphKuper from the University of Cologne, that the realproblems facing the many sites were highlighted.Tourism in the Oases has increased, and this presentsreal problems at many of the sites, which are often lessthan secure and open to anyone

An increased population in the “New Valley”, withpeople being encouraged to move to the Oases from theNile Valley, has meant that, whereas the local inhabi-tants were familiar with their monuments and appreci-ated them, others new to the area often realise the

“value” of them, and damage and looting has increased.The presence of more archaeologists often exacerbatesthis problem, for the implication is that there must besomething of value there The discovery of a hoard ofgold in the temple of Dush in Kharga Oasis a few yearsago did not help Only recently at least two mud-bricktemples have been flattened by a bulldozer, in anattempt to discover such treasure

Further south, one of the most remote hieroglyphicinscriptions has been deliberately vandalised, and thishas to have been done by someone in a tour group vis-iting the area, for that is the only way anyone can getthere

This news was quite depressing, but on the positiveside, measures are now being put in place to secure thesites, and the Gilf Khebir, in the south west corner ofEgypt, is to be made a National Park, which will restrict

News and views from the world of Egyptology

BITS and PIECES

June each year Details of the 2007 Colloquium will be

included in AE, when available

More on the Lion of Amenhotep III

In AE 33 (Dec 2005/Jan 2006) an article featured

a “new “ lion of Amenhotep III, at the Citadel in

Cairo, which was very similar to the two well-known

lions of Amenhotep III from Soleb, now in the British

Museum in London

Two other similar lions of Amenhotep are known

from Tanis, but the question was raised, where did this

example come from? One of the Tanis lions was moved

to Cairo and I did wonder if this was the one now at the

Citadel

In AE issue 34 (Feb./Mar 2006), the lion was

men-tioned again as, following a visit to Cairo, the Tanis lion

was spotted in a garden at Zamalek, in Cairo, leaving

the issue of the original location of the Citadel lion wide

open

I am pleased to say that the problem has been solved,

thanks to Hourig Sourouzian, the Director of the

Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple

Conservation Project

Hourig saw the article in the magazine, and her

knowledge of the sculpture of Amenhotep III meant

that she knew that the “Citadel lion” was actually a cast

of one of the British Museum Soleb lions! Close

exam-ination of the less-well preserved of the two lions (I

included a photograph of the best preserved example,

and it is the second lion that was cast), reveals this to be

correct

Hourig was not certain when the plaster cast wasmade, or when the lion was placed at the Citadel Olderguide books about the citadel state that two lions werelocated there at the base of the steps of the PoliceMuseum, but only one is there now Perhaps casts ofboth lions were once located there?

The Soleb lions came into the collection of the BritishMuseum in 1835 It does seem an extraordinary amount

of work to mould the lions in the UK and to send a cast(or casts) to Egypt, so it is possible that the lions were

cast when they were still in Egypt, en route to the UK.

However, at the end of the nineteenth century and inthe early years of the twentieth, many internationalmuseums exchanged plaster casts of some of their best-known objects This was a time when few travellers went

to Egypt and when there were hardly any books on thesubject; museums were quite happy to display casts TheBritish Museum sent casts of many of its objects allaround the world, as far afield as Australia In return,casts of objects in other collections were sent back and,

in the main sculpture gallery, the Museum displayed formany years a number of casts of statues from theEgyptian Museum in Cairo

As museums filled up with newly-excavated statues,the casts were removed and placed in storage

It is most likely, therefore, that the lions were cast as aspecial request from the Egyptian Museum, in return for

bits and pieces

examples oftheir mainexhibits Thecasts of theSoleb lions(and other stat-ues) may havebeen sent to the

E g y p t i a nMuseum

When suchcasts wereremoved fromdisplay, theywere often sent

to other tions and this isprobably how,and when, the Soleb lion casts were moved to the

institu-Citadel

I am not sure what sort of plaster was used, but it is

clearly very hard, for the Citadel example is undamaged

(other than ancient damage seen on the original) The

exposure to the air and the pollution in Cairo over a

peri-od of a hundred years, or possibly even more, has given

the lion a unique and well-weathered patina, which is

why I thought it was carved from limestone (unlike the

originals, which are carved in pink granite)

The originallion was dam-aged and inseveral pieces,and has beenrepaired in theBritish Mus-eum (the best-preserved lion

is still in onepiece) Parts ofthe statue havebeen restored,but an ancientrepair to thebase, visible inthe original, isnot part of thecast

The question remains, though … what has happened

to the other cast? There have been many improvementsand restorations at the Citadel and if the other lion hassurvived, perhaps it is still there somewhere The Citadel

is a fascinating place to visit and there is now a greatdeal to see there; AE readers should keep their eyesopen for the missing lion!

Return

Return

Touring Exhibition in Japan from the

Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Aspecial Exhibition has been put together that will

tour ten Japanese cities over a period of two

years This is a token of gratitude for Japan’s

major support for the establishment of the new Grand

Museum of Egypt to be built at Giza

The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni

explained that the Exhibition of over three hundred

pieces would include many objects discovered during

the last forty years by the Japanese Waseda University’s

archaeological mission to Egypt

One of the objects, a Middle Kingdom cartonnage

mask (shown above, photo: J Rutherford) was temporarily

on display in the new Imhotep Museum at Saqqara

Found at South Abusir and belonging to a man called

Senw, it was in a very damaged and delicate state To

enable it to go on the tour, it has been expertly

con-served, by conservators Richard and Helena Jaeschke,

using the latest techniques for the conservation of

car-tonnage (linen and plaster)

Re-Opening of the Coptic Museum

in Cairo

At the end of June, President Hosni Mubarak

for-mally re-opened the Coptic Museum in Cairo,following a major refurbishment that has costover £E30 million

In his address during the opening ceremony, theMinister of Culture Farouk Hosni said the CopticMuseum is one of Egypt’s most important museums,with a collection of over one thousand three hundredobjects on display in twenty-six galleries

Secretary General of the Supreme Council ofAntiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass said, during a tour ofthe museum conducted by the President, that therestoration project included the addition of a newgallery devoted to the history of churches in Old Cairoand that a special gallery for temporary exhibitions hasalso been built

The restoration began in 2003 and meant that themuseum was closed for almost three years

The Museum has an important collection of scripts, some of which date back to the fourth century

manu-AD, including thirteen bibles The collection also

fea-tures textiles, icons and woodwork, as well as many largepieces of stone sculpture and carvings from sites aroundEgypt

New Appointment by the SCA

Dr Zahi Hawass is pleased to announce a new

appointment, that of Adel Hussein Mohamed

to the post of General Director of Sharkia Adelbegan his career with the Supreme Council ofAntiquities in 1979, where he worked as an Inspector inMinia; in his later career he held Directorships of theNew Valley, Ain Shams, Saqqara and the Giza

From our EGYPT CORRESPONDENT

News from Egypt

Pyramids Adelbrings much expe-rience to his newjob in the NileDelta, which is rich

in antiquities He

is responsible forsix missions work-ing together withEgyptian archaeol-ogists on the mainsites at Tell Basta,Tanis and Qantir I

am sure many ofour readers havevisited these sitesand will continue to do so in the future

Adel is extremely happy to be in his new role and he

is looking forward to his Egyptian colleagues and

mis-sions uncovering more ancient artifacts from this area

A NCIENT E GYPTmagazine wishes him every success

for the future

New Development Plan for Saqqara

The SCA has recently announced a development

project for Saqqara, following the opening of theNew Imhotep Museum The project is to becompleted in thirty months and will cost £E40 million

The work will be in three stages:

1 Preparing the area for improved systems for

tourism

2 Building new administration offices, conservation

laboratories and improved security systems

3 Cleaning modern graffiti from tombs, providing

humidity systems and testing equipment for

them

The project will also help to improve the

documenta-tion of tombs with the help of the Italian Mission and

may involve about six hundred tombs in the area At

present only seventeen tombs are open to visitors and

this number will be increased

A new storage museum with improved security will be

built to house objects from excavations This will help

students of Egyptology and secure and conserve the

antiquities

The Serapeum at Saqqara

In AE issue 33 (December 2005) I mentioned the

huge restoration and conservation project beingundertaken by the SCA at the Serapeum atSaqqara

The Serapeum (the burial vaults of the sacred ApisBulls), which has been closed to visitors for many yearsnow, has been in serious danger of collapse and theimpressive and costly repair work by the SCA is still on-going The scale of the work can be seen from these pic-tures Initial restoration included the building of stonearches inside the vaults to prevent the collapse of theroof, but this was not enough and heavy steel girders arenow being fitted in the damaged parts of the vaults.Work like this, out of sight and not noticed by visitors, is

from our Egypt Correspondent

essential to ensure the long-term survival of this

impor-tant monument and, hopefully, to allow visitor access

once more

Neferhotep at Karnak

In AE 32 (October 2005), I reported on the finding

of a statue of Neferhotep I in the temple of Karnak

Found beneath the foundations of the obelisk of

Queen Hatshepsut, the figure of the king had then been

only partly revealed, but it was clear that it formed part

of a double statue with the second figure of Neferhotep

still buried

The statue was covered up again, but new excavations

have now taken place by archaeologists from the Centre

Franco-Egyptian d’Etude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK)

and more of the statue has been uncovered, including

the superbly preserved second figure of the king

from our Egypt Correspondent

Top left: one of the burial vaults in the Serapeum at Saqqara The heavy

girders are needed to prevent the roof of the vault from collapsing Beneath

the girders can be seen the wooden protective covering over one of the great

granite sarcophagi of the sacred bulls.

Photo: J Rutherford.

Top right: the double statue of Neferhotep I as revealed by new

excava-tions The second figure of the king, to the right, is still partly buried.

Right: detail of the face of the second image of the king.

Photos: courtesy of the Egyptian Supreme Council of

Antiquities and the Centre Franco-Egyptian d’Etude des

Temples de Karnak (CFEETK).

Neferhotep is shown holding hands with a double of

himself, probably his ka The statue, as can be seen from

the photographs, is buried deeply; its large size and the

fact that it is an integral part of the foundations of the

temple mean that it is not certain that it can be removed

from the site

AE issue 34 (Feb 2006) featured an article on

Neferhotep I

More on the Foundation Deposits recently

discovered at Karnak

In the last issue of AE, I reported on the discovery of

foundation deposits with objects bearing the name

of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut

All the objects, which included pottery (now restored,

as much of it was broken when found), models of

cop-per or bronze chisels, and gold and faience cartouches,

have been removed from their find site, and I can now

bring you some photographs of them:

Discoveries in the “Hidden Valley” at Farafra Oasis

The “Hidden Valley” is a

five-hundred-metre-square valley located sixty kilometers north east

of Farafra Oasis, and is not a well-known area,even to people who live in the Oasis

An Italian team from Naples University has recentlydiscovered there a settlement from very ancient times.The team was headed by Prof Barbara Barich andGiulio Lacarini and has been successful in finding shel-ters, knives and bracelets Carbon dating of objects sug-gests a date of around 7700 BC

Archaeologists believe that the shelters formed a smallcommunity of about twenty people A cave, thought to

be sacred, was also found cut into a nearby mountain.Inside, there were a number of rock art representations

of sheep, gazelles and ostriches, together with prints and some graffiti

hand-Treasures of Dakhla Oasis

The Fifth International Conference of the

Dakhleh Oasis Project took place in the summer

in Cairo It was well attended with an tional gathering of scholars who have excavated andstudied at the Oasis and were able to talk about theirfields of work Papers were also given on a range of sub-jects from Dutch, French, German and Egyptianexperts on rock art, graffiti, pottery and studies carriedout at Kellis, the ancient Roman Period village nowcalled Ismant Al Kharab

interna-The head of the Dakhleh Oasis Project is Anthony J.Mills, who has worked in the Oasis for nearly thirtyyears – the team has carried out research in the Oasissince 1978

At least twenty-five Roman temples have been found

in Dakhla, the best-preserved being the Temple of Deir

el Hagar, which, under a team headed by AnthonyMills, was restored during the 1990s Some graffiti on amud-brick wall still remain there – the names of teammembers from an expedition visiting the site thelate1800s

To mark the opening of this year’s conference, DrWafaa El Saddik, Director of the Egyptian Museum in

from our Egypt Correspondent

Left: the foundation deposits recently discovered in the Temple of Amun

at Karnak, by the Centre Franco-Egyptian d’Etude des Temples

de Karnak (CFEETK).

Cairo, and Dr Zahi Hawass, head of the SCA,

organ-ised an exhibition in Room 44 of the Egyptian Museum

entitled “Treasures of the Dakhleh Oasis” Some

objects have never been on display to the public before,

so I went along to see this small but very beautiful

dis-play of objects from the Old Kingdom, Late Period and

Roman times

I have chosen two objects out of the collection to write

about The first is the anthropoid coffin that was found

with four others in a single chamber of a tomb at Ein

Tirghi in 1986, and is from the First Persian Period The

other coffins from the same tomb are in the Royal

Ontario Museum, Canada

It was probably a family tomb, because the

inscrip-tions on the coffin lids show a family relainscrip-tionship This

particular coffin was displayed in a glass case and was

the main feature of the exhibition, due to its well-placed

position in the room The excellent lighting attracted me

to it straight away

The coffin is highly decorated and brightly painted,

especially the facial features, wig and trunk of the body

It is made out of small pieces of wood, a common

fea-ture during this period, because wood was scarce Some

analysis of children’s bodies found at Ein Tirghi shows

that they suffered from anaemia A small percentage of

children died at birth Adults were short in height and

the average life expectancy was the mid-twenties

The second exhibit is a collection of seven glass vessels

found at the Roman village of Kellis (Ismant

al-Kharab) The one I want to mention is the “Gladiator

Jug”, which is highly decorated on all sides and is

paint-ed in beautiful colours on pale and darker green glass It

depicts a scene of a gladiator in combat; he has dark

curly hair and is stretching out his left hand holding his

shield In his right hand he is holding a dagger In

anoth-er scene a gladiator is shown wearing a helmet and

crouching down The referee, depicted in white

cloth-ing, waves his rod or stick Looking at the vase closely

you will see many colourful floral motifs around the

neck and base of the vase To me this is the very best of

this glass vessel collection

I was informed that room 44 in the Egyptian Museumwill hold all temporary displays and exhibitions on arotation basis, so be sure to check out this room on yournext visit to the museum

My thanks to Dr Hawass and the Director of theEgyptian Museum, Dr Wafaa El Saddik, for allowing

me to take photographs of this very special exhibition

from our Egypt Correspondent

Above left: the head of a painted coffin from the First Persian Period,

found at Dakhla Oasis.

Above: the glass “Gladiator Jug” also from Dakhla.

Photos: Ayman Wahby Taher, courtesy the SCA and the

Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

The Mortuary Temple of

Amenhotep III at Luxor

In AE issue 35 (April 2006), we reported on the

remarkable finds made by the Colossi of Memnon and

Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project, under the

Directorship of Hourig Sourouzian

Many significant finds of fragmentary statues of

Amenhotep III have been found and also a large

num-ber of granite statues of the goddess Sekhmet The

dis-coveries were a surprise to all concerned, at a site that

has been plundered and excavated since antiquity and

that many thought would reveal nothing new

Hopes will be high of more discoveries when the new

excavation season gets underway at the end of the year

from our Egypt Correspondent

Above top:

view of the Sekhmet statues as first uncovered

The Imhotep Museum at Saqqara

Egypt’s first “site” museum was opened in late

April this year The idea of a series of new

muse-ums at specific archaeological sites in Egypt was

suggested in the early 1990s but it was kept under wraps

until 1997

When Dr Zahi Hawass took office some four years

ago as the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ Secretary

General, several museum projects had already been put

on hold Dr Hawass has strong beliefs about the

preser-vation and protection of Egyptian monuments and he

wanted to pursue the idea and ensure that visitors to the

great sites could also see objects found there In the past

objects were either moved to the Egyptian Museum in

the heart of Cairo, or simply placed in storage at the

sites Continuous excavations and lack of space in the

Egyptian Museum meant that many objects worthy of

display, which helped to tell the history of the

monu-ments and sites, were hidden from view

With support from the Culture Minister, Farouk

Hosni, Dr Hawass developed the plans for the first of

the site museums, to be built at Saqqara At the same

time, plans for the extension to the Luxor Museum were

drawn up, and the completion of this extension is

some-thing of which the SCA is justly proud

The new museum at Saqqara has been called the

“Imhotep Museum” in honour of the Vizier of King

Djoser It is believed that Imhotep was the architect for

the king’s great funerary complex and pyramid and he

was also venerated in late pharaonic Egypt as a wiseman and patron of medicine

I myself couldn’t wait to see this outstanding museum,

so I went along early one morning to do my own ration tour for readers of AE

explo-Built of stone, the new museum is built right at thebase of the Saqqara plateau Many of you will knowwhere the ticket office for the site is (or actually was, for

it has moved), opposite the Valley Temple of King Unas.The new museum is to the right of the road, past thispoint and on the edge of the cultivation The ticketoffice has been moved to this area too and there is spacefor visitors’ coaches and cars to park

The architects of the new building have incorporatedelements of ancient Egyptian architecture in theirdesign, notably many dating to the Old Kingdom Parts of the exterior and interior design pay homage

to the ancient architects and builders, but result in asplendid modern building, spacious and attractive and asuperb setting and home for the objects it contains

from our Egypt Correspondent

a splendid Old Kingdom wooden head with inlaid eyes, moved

to the Imhotep Museum from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Photo: RP.

On arrival, I was asked if I wanted to see the special

documentary film before going into the museum, but I

was so keen to see the display I declined this invitation,

for the moment, and went into the museum first The

electronic doors opened and I walked into the cool air

conditioning of the main hall

Firstly, you encounter the solid base of a statue of the

Third Dynasty king Djoser, on which are inscribed the

king’s name and titles and also Imhotep’s name The

feet are shown stepping on the nine bows of Egypt,

which represent foreign countries The base is on a

four-month loan from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

The Museum’s major objective is to display the most

significant artifacts discovered on the Saqqara site, those

that help explain the history and purpose of this huge

archaeological site Apart from one or two moved from

the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, all the objects have

come from antiquities storage magazines and have

never been on display to the public before

In the second hall, high up on the wall, is a list of

archaeologists who have excavated in Saqqara from

1850 to 2006 Many of the names will be familiar to

AE readers; they include some of the best known

deceased and living Egyptologists, such as Auguste

Marriette, Gaston Maspero, Jean Phillippe Lauer,

Walter B Emery, Alain Zivie and Geoffrey T Martin –

archaeologists who have made discoveries dating from

the early Dynastic Periods right up to Greek and Romantimes, and even beyond into the Coptic era (I had bet-ter mention that the last two Egyptologists on the list arevery much alive and well, and still working.)

This hall, named the “Saqqara Missions”, also has adisplay of discoveries by Dr Hawass The two of his Iwould like to mention are the anthropoid painted coffincased with gold from the Late Period and the coppermedical instruments from the tomb of Qar the physi-cian

The third hall, named “Saqqara Style”, displays thevarious styles of art found in the history of Saqqara, fea-turing a collection of stone vessels used for cosmetics

from the Early Dynastic period Amongst other objectsare clay vessels and huge alabaster pots in variousshapes More than forty thousand vases carved fromhard stone were found beneath the Step Pyramid

from our Egypt Correspondent

The fourth hall, named “Imhotep Architecture”,which is open-plan and the largest of the galleries, dis-plays the architectural style of Djoser’s funeral complex

at the site

Items include the remains of columns, and a frieze ofcobras brought from the façade of the Southern Tomb’scult chapel for protection When you visit the complex

of Djoser, many of the elements of the building havebeen restored The museum display shows originalblocks, the way in which fallen blocks were pieced backtogether, and also how the buildings were originally con-structed Visiting this gallery will make a visit to thepyramid complex at the top of the plateau much morerewarding

Some larger objects dominate the centre of thegallery, including a headless statue of King Djoser, and

an unusual “Snake Pillar” which Dr Hawass has lished under the title of “A Fragmentary Monument ofDjoser from Saqqara” This publication has helpedmany Egyptian scholars including myself with theirstudies

pub-from our Egypt Correspondent

Above: the painted wooden head of a woman from one of the New Kingdom tombs at Saqqara, discovered by Alain Zivie.

Left: a fine example of an Old Kingdom statue from one of the tombs at Saqqara Most of the monuments open to visitors at Saqqara date to the Old Kingdom, but the site was in continuous use from before this time right up to the Roman Period

Photos: J Rutherford.

At the back of the fourth hall stands a full-sized copy

of the blue-tiled wall of the Step Pyramid’s Southern

Tomb, showing King Djoser in a ceremonial dress for

his jubilee, known as the Heb-Sed The Southern Tomb

is closed to visitors, so this exhibit provides an

opportu-nity to see the unique reliefs of Djoser and the stunning

blue colour of the tiles Many of the tiles in this display

are originals

I think the masterpiece of this gallery is a small bronze

statue showing Imhotep seated and holding a papyrus

stem No contemporary image of Imhotep is known and

most of the representations we have date to the Late

Period of Egyptian history His tomb, which many

believe has to be at Saqqara close to that of Djoser, has

not been found, despite the efforts of archaeologists for

almost two hundred years

The fifth hall, named “Saqqara Tombs”, provides you

with information about the contents of the tombs On

show is a coffin with remains of blue colours, and a

cof-fin text inscribed on its inner sides painted in black on a

yellow base A rowing boat was also found, and this is

on display above the coffin This room pays tribute to

the many archaeologists at Saqqara who have made

dis-coveries of funerary ware such as offering tables, false

doors and amulets, all of which can now be seen, many

for the first time

The sixth and final hall, named “Lauer’s Library”, is

dedicated to him and his life’s work at Saqqara, cially his efforts in restoring the Step Pyramid complex.Here there is a wonderful display of some of his per-sonal belongings, which include his hat, camera, com-pass and tools He worked in Egypt for around seventy-five years until his death in 2001 Be sure not to miss thisroom because it is so different from the others

espe-As I walked back out of the air-conditioned museuminto the brilliant sunshine, I decided to seek some rest inthe Visitors’ Centre to watch the ten-minute documen-

tary film on Saqqara, produced by National Geographic in

conjunction with the SCA The room is very spaciouswith comfortable seating on all three sides

In the middle of the room stands a small model of theStep Pyramid complex and behind this is the widescreen The film is in English and is narrated by theEgyptian film star Omar Sharif Dr Hawass gives a shortintroduction to Saqqara Museum and Dr Alain Zivietalks briefly about his discoveries I found the film veryinformative and well worth the time

During my visit, I saw a reasonable number of touristsand visitors, but in my opinion it needs many more tocome to the museum

If you visit Saqqara with a tour, there will probablynot be time to visit the museum and it is doubtful ifmany of the more popular tour companies will includethe museum on their itineraries Hopefully, the moreserious and specialist tour companies will see the newmuseum as an absolute must for visitors

It is easy to make a special visit to Saqqara, but if youare making your own way there, then do make sure youhave the time to visit the museum and can spend as long

as you like there The facilities are of the highest dard, consisting of restrooms, shops, and a cafeteria.The complex is well designed and features a walkthrough palm-tree-lined paths to the museum entrance The ticket price is £E15 for tourists for the museumonly and I believe you can also buy a combined ticket,which will include the museum and the other sites atSaqqara It doesn’t matter what time of the day you visitthe museum because all the buildings are fully air-con-ditioned The important thing is not to miss it

stan-Ayman Wahby Taher

Ayman is currently a full-time lecturer in Egyptology atthe University of Mansura, Egypt Prior to this heworked for the Supreme Council of Antiquities forseven years under the guidance of Dr Zahi Hawass He

is also a qualified tour guide in Egypt

from our Egypt Correspondent

Above: a fine blue/green faience broad-collar from one of the tombs at

Saqqara Photo: J Rutherford.

When embarking on a project at a site as large

and at least superficially featureless as the desertportion of Hierakonpolis, the first order ofbusiness is to conduct a surface survey and figure out what

you’ve got This is exactly what Walter Fairservis and

Michael Hoffman did in the early years of the Expedition

beginning in 1964, making inventories of, and assigning

locality numbers (HK6, HK29, etc.) to, the various

fea-tures identified throughout this immense site These

sur-veys revealed not only interesting facets of the

Predynastic occupation, but also the presence of three

discrete cemeteries of the Nubian inhabitants of

Hierakonpolis in the Middle Kingdom and Second

Intermediate Period: HK21A and HK47 located at

oppo-site edges of the oppo-site; and HK27C in the centre, near the

Fort

All three were assumed to belong to the Pan Grave

cul-ture – Nubian mercenaries, probably the Medjay of

Egyptian sources, who were brought in to defend Egypt

during the troubled times of the Second Intermediate

Period Cemeteries of this distinctive culture have been

detected all along the Nile Valley, but the people remain

a mystery We still do not know for certain who they were,

where they came from, and where they went when the job

was done They were first discovered by Flinders Petrie,

who coined the name “Pan Grave” because their shallow

round graves resembled frying pans, and indeed some of

them do

Test excavations at HK21A in 2001 uncovered six of

these pan-like graves, all unfortunately badly plundered,

but with enough of the characteristic incised pottery and

jewellery to mark their presence

Far richer and better preserved were the graves at

HK47, which had been dug deeply into the loose white

sand and lined with multi-coloured goat and cow skins

Although all of the burials had been plundered, the

funer-ary offerings left outside the graves escaped untouched

These above-ground offerings are typical of Nubian

funerary practices and here included a number of pots

(Egyptian and Nubian) and baskets as well as a little

bot-tle, which had been deposited together with a leather bag

containing a kit for making carnelian beads The leather

of the bag had deteriorated, but still preserved was the

band of woven beads that once adorned it White, blue,

and dark blue faience beads were used to create an

intri-cate diamond pattern, which thanks to modern dants, we were able to recover still in position

consoli-Despite the disturbance of the graves, we found a prising amount of new information about the appearanceand profession of the Pan Grave people Many graves stillcontained remnants of leather garments, often dyed redand occasionally decorated with charming leather tassels,

sur-in addition to elaborately woven frsur-inged cloth with whichthey apparently lined their leather kilts Large quantities

AE brings you the fifth report on the excavations and research

at Hierakonpolis (ancient Nekhen), supported by the Friends of Nekhen

Renée Friedman, the Director of the Hierakonpolis Expedition, looks at

Excavating a pan-shaped grave in the Pan Grave cemetery at HK21A.

of beads were also found, some still on their string, thus

preserving the original pattern These included a

com-plete bracelet of stunning garnet beads, and an armlet of

rectangular mother-of-pearl plaque beads, one of the

most characteristic elements of Pan Grave attire By

piec-ing together the bits of raw hide thong remainpiec-ing in one

set of beads, conservator Fran Cole was able to

recon-struct the armlet revealing its original curve over the arm

A leather bow grip, bow string and arrow shafts with the

trimmed feather fletching remarkably still in place leave

little doubt about their day jobs Examination by physicalanthropologists shows that the people interred here weremainly young men, seventeen to twenty-five years of age,

of over-average Egyptian stature, (171 to180 centimetres;5' 6" to 5' 9"), with strong muscle attachments in theirlegs, as one might expect of military professionals.Colourfully adorned with tasselled leather garments,fringed kilts, and bespangled with beads at neck, arms,wrist and ankle, they must have been an impressive sight.Intriguing as this Pan Grave cemetery was, it was no

Left: an offering deposited outside one of the Pan Graves included a little jar and a

leather bag containing a bead-making kit

match for the surprises in store for us at HK27C, thecemetery by the Fort Our first surprise was the exquisitescarab found on the first day of our test excavations in

2001 Our second revelation was that this cemetery ally belonged to the Nubian C-Group, probably the last ofits kind in existence after the waters of Lake Nasser flood-

actu-ed the heartland of this indigenous Nubian culture

Although these Nubians (called Nehesy in Egyptian

sources) were also prized for their fighting skill, and in theemploy of nomarchs in the First Intermediate Period, itseems that they either adopted Egyptian funerary prac-tices or returned home at death During the MiddleKingdom, when Egypt occupied Lower Nubia to theSecond Cataract with a series of imposing forts built tocontrol a people they called “wretched” and “vile”, lack ofevidence for their presence suggested that these particularNubians were not welcome north of Aswan Thus, a C-Group cemetery, located over one hundred kilometresnorth of the political border, was definitely an unexpect-

ed discovery

Excavations in 2001 and 2003 uncovered twenty-threeout of an estimated one hundred graves, revealing dis-tinctive funerary architecture, still intact above-groundoffering places, delicate decorated pottery, exquisite jew-ellery and colourful leather garments typical of thisNubian culture, showing that at least in death the inhab-itants proudly displayed their cultural links, despite beingpositioned within Egyptian territory

Dating from the Eleventh Dynasty through earlySecond Intermediate Period (2055-1700 BC), the wealth

of the graves suggests these people were not slaves or oners of war, but members of a community that was res-ident at the site for several generations The reason fortheir presence, their lifestyle and their interaction with theEgyptian population are issues that we are exploring andfurther excavations are planned for winter 2007

pris-As elsewhere, none of the graves had entirely escapedplunder, but organic preservation in a select few was spec-tacular In one instance, the preservation of the skin of anolder woman allowed us to reconstruct the pattern of herelaborate tattoos A diamond of short dashed linesadorned her left hand, and a pattern of dots and dashesran down the back of her left arm Skin adhering to theribs preserved a dotted zigzag line along the front of thetorso, with a more elaborate lattice pattern of dottedsquares running down along the abdomen, up over thehip and onto her back Tattooing is typical of Nubian cul-tures, and it is from Nubia that the Egyptians adopted thepractice in the Middle Kingdom Who would have imag-ined we would have a cemetery of such trend-setters!

The same tomb also contained copious amounts ofleather Unique to this burial were delicate fragments ofcut-work leather of differing quality One mass of leather,

perforated with a pattern of parallel rectangles (c 5mm x

and a

tery

ffering.

Right top: feather fletching still in place on the Pan Grave arrows.

Right centre: the tattooed skin of a Nubian dancer(?) from the C-Group

cemetery.

Right bottom: the remains of leather garments with carefully made

perforations; a loincloth on the left and a hairnet on the right.

2mm), looked so

incredi-bly fragile, yet turned out

to be sufficiently supple

for Fran Cole to examine

the construction of the

garment from which it

originated Composed of

a patchwork of pre-cut

panels with a specific

number of cut-out

rec-tangles per row, it appears

most similar to a

loin-cloth, a light but

hard-wearing garment worn by

soldiers, sailors and

work-men to protect their linen

kilts, and again is a fashion that the Egyptians adopted

from Nubia Although generally a garment restricted to

the male wardrobe, there are some exceptions

A Ramesside ostracon depicts a dancing girl wearing a

cut-work loincloth, apparently as her special (and only)

performance costume (see above).The similarities between

the tattoos that adorn this dancer and those found on our

Nubian lady are certainly intriguing, and, despite the time

difference, this combination of loincloth and tattoos may

be more than coincidental Although our lady was well

into her forties and had lost all of her upper teeth, a

localised injury to her lower back suggests that in her

youth she may well have done a back flip or two

Age apparently also brings modesty, as our lady was

buried with far more clothing that the girl on the

ostra-con Impressions on the skin of the ear and chin suggest

that finer-quality leather, with perforations less than 4mm

in length (making for an astonishing forty-two slashes per

square centimetre), may be the remnant of a leather hair

net that was tied under the chin Her other garments

include a leather top with brown and white, horizontally

striped, flaring sleeves that connected to a bodice of pink

leather with yellow appliqué A colourful combination

indeed!

Other garments made

of a patchwork of brown,beige, pink, red and yel-low leather panels werefound in several graves,but almost exclusivelythose of women; theyprobably derive fromtheir multicolour skirts.Leather kilts with bluefaience beads sewn at theseams and edges werefound in the graves ofmen

In addition to typicalNubian clothing and tat-toos, we also observed characteristic Nubian funeraryarchitecture.The most elaborate was the well-built ring ortumulus of mud-brick, four courses high, around Tomb

17 After its construction, several large boulders wererolled in, and between them a platform or offering chapel

of specially selected bright yellow fieldstones was erected

As was the Nubian custom, numerous offerings of potterywere left above ground on all sides of the tumulus Wefound pots, both Egyptian and Nubian, under almostevery rock, nestled in brick cists or simply left up againstthe side of the brick ring The final appearance must havebeen a dazzling tribute to the young man, twenty to thir-

ty years of age, buried within

But it wasn’t just pottery that they left as above-groundofferings A short length of beads just below the surfacesoon revealed itself to be part of a string of over onethousand six hundred tiny blue faience beads wrappedaround an iridescent shell pendant Painstakingly collect-

ed in small clusters for restringing in their original order,they produced a result that is an elegant addition to anyoutfit

Despite being so far north in what we consider to beEgyptian territory, the occupants of the cemetery appear

to have made few concessions to Egyptian influence other

Above: a Ramesside ostracon of a tattooed dancing girl

(ostracon IFAO 3779).

(After W.H Peck, Egyptian Drawings, New York 1978, pl 68).

Below left: a typically Nubian tumulus around Tomb 17.

Below right: a hand-made Nubian pot with incised decoration;

a hallmark of the C-Group Nubians.

than a general use of Egyptian pottery, mud-brick instead

of stone for their tumuli, and in some cases simple

wood-en coffins In death, at least, they dressed like Nubians,

constructed Nubian funerary architecture, and deposited

Nubian grave goods above ground in traditional Nubian

fashion The population of the cemetery, which includes

an even spread of men, women and children, was

obvi-ously a wealthy one, with most of the inhabitants living

into their forties and beyond in relatively good health

Caries and abscesses with relatively minor arthritis are the

most common pathologies The Egyptian pottery

indi-cates a date ranging from the Eleventh Dynasty into the

Second Intermediate Period, suggesting a long-term

pres-ence at the site and this is not the only evidpres-ence for

Nubians at Hierakonpolis

Other evidence for C-Group presence is found at an

isolated sandstone knoll on the northern edge of the site

known as HK64 Adorning this hillock is a vast array of

incised petroglyphs, many of which can be attributed to

the Nubian C-Group culture, as well as one of the rare

examples of rock painting north of Aswan, depicting a

boat and a quadruped in black pigment (see overleaf).

Surrounding this rock-art hill was a series of

superim-posed campsites/fireplaces containing Nubian pottery

and quartz cobbles, suggestive of Nubian lithic

technolo-gy What exactly this all meant remained a mystery until

the excavation of one campsite revealed a rounded pit,

fifty centimetres in diameter and twenty centimetres deep,

containing a carefully laid mass of ostrich feathers The

long tail feathers lined the pit, while filling it were several

layers of smaller feathers Carefully nestled between these

layers was a small stone with an inscription that provides

an intriguing explanation for this deposit and the

recur-rent visits to this remote site The stone reads: “The

Golden One, she appears in glory” and is a reference to

the goddess Hathor in her solar function

As the Eye of the Sun, Hathor left Egypt after her

drunken humiliation while trying to exterminate

mankind, and still angry she roamed the deserts of the far

south in the form of a bloodthirsty lioness Various deities

sought her out and tried to entice her back to Egypt

Ritual texts relate that when Hathor finally agreed to

return, a large entourage was assembled Among those

who escorted her back to Egypt were various Nubian

tribesmen They danced for her and made specific

offer-ings in her honour A stanza from a ritual papyrus reads:

“Let us take for her feathers of the back(s) of ostriches,which the Libyans slay for you with their throw sticks …”With this hymn as well as graphic representation fromthe site itself of an ostrich and throw stick, it is not hard

to imagine this ostrich-feather deposit as an offering fromthe Nubian tribesmen who were celebrating the annualreturn of Hathor The unique discovery of the actualremains of this popular celebration is an exciting newexplanation for the activities at the site and of the Nubianpopulation, be they resident or mobile

The return from the south of the distant goddess was apopular celebration also for the Egyptians and corre-sponded with the coming of the Nile flood in lateJune/early July While a desert location such as HK64seems an odd place to celebrate the inundation, it was infact the natural place to greet it The millennia of siltsdeposited by the Nile on its banks meant that the flood

Left and above: an offering of a beautiful shell pendant wrapped round

with beads appears, just below the surface in the C-Group cemetery.

Below: the shell pendant restrung –an elegant addition to any outfit

plain was actually higher than the low desert that

sur-rounded it Before the Nile flooded its banks, a rise in

ground water would be noticeable in the low desert Even

today at HK64 the high water table is evident and there

is a perennial well nearby, whose waters are reputed to be

effective in curing skin complaints Old habits appear to

die hard, as those who make use of the well are still in the

habit of leaving behind offerings of soap and combs

Prior to the discovery of the C-Group Cemetery, it was

suggested that desert-pastoralists, attracted by the rapid

growth of desert flora induced by the rising ground water,were responsible for the remains at HK64 This may still

be the case, their arrival acting as a potent signal of thecoming flood to their urban kinsmen as well as theEgyptian population The ritual texts suggest that,although officially despised, Nubians eventually becamesymbols of Hathor’s return and came to play key roles inthis and other celebrations

All the evidence indicates that a good time was had atthis place; a hearty feast, song and dance, and perhapseven a little rock music Recent research in Sudan hasdemonstrated that the quartz cobbles with abraded endsfound around many petroglyphic sites were not used to

make the rock art, but to play the rock art While the

sand-stone of our hill may not respond to a percussion beat asmusically as Sudanese granite, such a usage wouldexplain the large number of quartz cobbles in the camp-sites at HK64 Clearly a bit of experimental archaeology

is called for in the near future to find out for sure.Such celebrations may have served as a way for theNubian population to renew its ethnicity by interacting

interaction between Nubians and

Egyptians than the official documents

have hitherto allowed us to

acknowl-edge

The C-Group cemetery at

Hierakonpolis is the northernmost

one now known In New Kingdom

times, Hierakonpolis was

adminis-tered as part of Nubia under the

con-trol of the Viceroy of Kush The

rea-son for its inclusion in the land of

Nubia may well have been because of

its sizable and varied Nubian

popula-tion As work continues we hope to

understand more fully the relations

between the different Nubian peoples,

their place within Hierakonpolis and,

indeed, all of Egypt

Acknowledgements

Excavation and study of the Nubian

localities was made possible by grants

from the National Geographic

Society and the Michela

Schiff-Giorgini Foundation, with additional

funds from the Friends of Nekhen

Renée Friedman

Unless otherwise stated, all

photo-graphs and images are by the author

About the Friends of Nekhen

Please help support the work of the Hierakonpolis

Expedition by becoming a member of the Friends of

Nekhen.

As a member you will receive an annual newsletter, the

Nekhen News, produced exclusively for Friends This

con-tains all the latest news and research from the site (much

more than we can include in AE) Membership also

enti-tles you to special rates on Expedition publications

Your contribution (which is tax-deductible if you live in

the United States) will support vital research that might

not otherwise be possible and is an ideal way of sharing

the excitement and commitment of the Hierakonpolis

London, WC1B 3DG

School of Archaeology & Ancient History

Explore the past by distance learning Introductory courses in archaeology

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or visit www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/dl/ quoting ref AE2006

Above right:

a petroglyph of a hunted ostrich from near the ostrich feather deposit

at HK64.

Since March this year, when the discovery of the

new tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV-63) was

formally announced, the team from the University

of Memphis and their Egyptian colleagues have been

working hard to clear the small chamber and to make

some sense of the contents

The excavating season, which should have ended in

the Spring, was extended The Director of the

excava-tion, Dr Otto Schaden, was the last member of the team

to leave Egypt, at the end of July, for a well-deserved

break, having overseen a season that lasted a record

seven months

The last report ended with the chamber cleared of all

the storage jars and with just two of the seven coffins

remaining Up to that point no bodies had been found,

although the coffins and jars contained a wide range of

objects and materials, which included pottery, linen,

natron, stone fragments, six feather-filled pillows or

cushions and a small gilded coffin

The clearance of the tomb was filmed by the

Discovery Channel and many AE readers may have

had the chance to see the first programme, if not both

It is unusual for an excavation of this type to be

record-ed and presentrecord-ed in this way, and it gave a unique (if, of

necessity, selective) view of the work

The programmes highlighted three aspects of the

work that are not necessarily apparent from the written

accounts and the photographs released so far

It was clear that work in the confined space was far

from easy, and that the working conditions were equally

bad When the excavation extended into what is

nor-mally the closed season for work in Egypt, temperaturessoared in the Valley of the Kings, and the few fans intro-duced into the shaft and chamber will have done littlemore than circulate hot air For the excavators it washot, uncomfortable and dusty work

The appalling condition of the woodwork in the tombwas perhaps more apparent in the TV programme Four

of the coffins had been badly attacked by termites andwere in an extremely fragile condition The termites hadtreated the thick black coating on the coffins like treebark, and had tunnelled into the wood beneath thislayer

The result was that the black pitch was in some casesall that was keeping the powdery wood together Thissituation was not helped by the fact that the coffins werepacked with heavy items, which exerted pressure on thecoffin walls from the inside, causing them to split andthe lids to collapse inwards Interestingly, the faces offive of the coffins are relatively well preserved and arenot affected by termite damage The faces were not cov-ered in black pitch, just yellow paint on the carved woodsurface

The unsung heroes and heroines of archaeology arethe conservators, and their work often goes unnoticed.Chief Conservator Nadia Lukma faced an amazing

challenge – to conserve the wood in situ, so that the

coffins could be removed from the tomb

It was important to keep the coffin fragments

togeth-er in panels or sections as far as possible A numbtogeth-er oftechniques were used, which included the use ofJapanese tissue paper This is very thin, but very strong

KV-63 Update: the final stage

A

AE E brings you the fourth and final article on the latest tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings Will we finally know the answer to the question “is this a tomb or a funerary cache?”

and was carefully stuck to the wooden surfaces,

proba-bly using something like a water-soluble cellulose-based

adhesive This paper can easily be removed at a later

time

Gaps in the wood were carefully packed with cotton

wool, soaked in a special solution that hardened Both

techniques enabled the damaged fragments to be

removed in larger pieces and will enable further

conser-vation and possible restoration of the coffins at a later

stage

Such a major attack by termites is not necessarily rare,

but is a first for a tomb in the Valley of the Kings Just

imagine (though perhaps it is better not to) the

conse-quences if similar damage had occurred in the nearby

tomb of Tutankhamun or the almost contemporary

tomb of Yuya and Thuya, also filled with many splendid

funerary items and coffins

The conditions inside the chamber did not help the

work of conservators From the moment the tomb was

opened, the team had to work quickly, but as safely and

diligently as possible The wood would begin to suffer

from the changes in temperature and the increased

humidity in the confined space The latter was a major

concern, as many of the coffins included natron in theircontents This absorbs moisture, expanding in theprocess and potentially causing further damage

Perhaps the most interesting thing that the TV mentary showed was the excitement and pure delight ofthe team members when they made their discoveries It

docu-is easy to forget, when reading a formal excavationreport, that archaeology can be exciting, and any find,

be it a piece of pottery or something more substantial,can be a source of delight and wonder and an amazingexperience for those few trained experts privileged,experienced and lucky enough to be in the right place atthe right time

With just two coffins left, the small infant coffin (coffinD) and the larger coffin (E) against the rear wall of thechamber, hope remained that there might be bodies inthe chamber Both coffins, unlike all the others, stillappeared to be sealed

The team used an endoscope (a small camera with alight attached) to look through holes in the last twocoffins to see if they could determine what, if anything,might be inside The results were disappointing: it waspossible to see only bits and pieces of flowers, potteryshards and dirt

The infant coffin was empty It was discovered thatthis well-made coffin was covered in gold and laterpainted with a thick layer of black pitch, which virtual-

ly obscured all the details The face and head area

Above: view of coffin E with the lid removed, revealing the floral collars

Note the Japanese tissue paper applied to the outside of the coffin to hold it

together and also the cotton wool used to fill and consolidate some of the gaps.

Photo: courtesy of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

appear to be in good condition and elaborately

execut-ed, but the remainder of the wood is in poor condition

due to termite damage The coffin measures around

forty-six centimeters in length, just a little longer than

the gilt coffinette found inside coffin G

Attention turned then to the final coffin Lying close

to the wall, at the head and feet of this coffin, two more

pillows or cushions were found, bringing the total found

in KV63 to eight

The exterior of the base and parts of the lid were

cov-ered in Japanese tissue paper, to strengthen it before the

lid was carefully removed A carved inscription

deco-rates this coffin, but it is covered by thick black pitch and

has not yet been read

Everyone was hoping for a mummy, but what was

revealed was a coffin packed full to the brim with the

same variety of objects found in the other coffins

However, on top of the debris were a number of

elabo-rate floral collars Made using real flowers, stitched onto

a papyrus backing, they also incorporated beads and

gold They had been laid rather carelessly in the coffin

and were crumpled and partly squashed by the coffin

The coffin base was too large to be lifted from thechamber with all the contents in place, as its fragile statemeant that it could not take the weight of the contents;they were much heavier than a mummy would havebeen

There was little choice but to clear the coffin in thetomb, an excavation in its own right, and then to removeits base from the chamber The coffin was carefully emp-tied, revealing more of the same types of objects found

in the other coffins, but no mummy or any humanremains

Once the coffin was removed it was possible to sweepthe floor of the chamber to ensure that nothing hadbeen missed and to be certain that there were no otherchambers to be found

Now that the chamber has been cleared, a newperimeter or enclosure wall has been built around theshaft and the tomb has effectively been closed

All the objects were removed to the nearby tomb ofAmenmesse, used as a laboratory and storage area dur-ing the excavation (although a few of the larger objectshave been moved to the SCA storage magazine in

chamber was filled The hard evidence from the tomb is

limited and frustratingly fragmentary – an inscription

on a jar mentions Year Five of a king’s reign, but with

no name, and elsewhere the end of a name “… pa

Aten”, Ankhesenpaaten perhaps?

The cache of objects, for it is clearly not a tomb,

con-tains unique artifacts, and there may be more surprises

to come when the detailed study of them continues

It is possible that the chamber once contained a

bur-ial, for the doorway was sealed This original sealing was

broken down when, possibly, some or all of the original

contents were removed The chamber was then filled

with the coffins and storage jars and the doorway

re-sealed for the last time

The mass of material clearly comes from a burial or

an embalming cache and the indications are that they

were not simply swept up from the floor of this small

chamber, but were brought from elsewhere Fragments

of one pot were found in two separate coffins, which

would indicate a fairly rushed clearing-up process If all

the objects were from an important burial, then this

might explain why they were treated so respectfully

We know Tutankhamun acquired objects for his own

burial that may have come from the royal tombs at

Amarna; perhaps when these tombs were cleared and

the burials moved back to Thebes, the items of little or

no intrinsic value were also collected and moved to this

Top right: Dr Zahi Hawass visited the tomb when the final coffin was

opened; here he examines the contents

Photo: courtesy of the Egyptian Supreme Council of

Antiquities.

Right: Dr Otto Schaden, the Director of the excavation, shown holding

the small gilded coffin

Photo: Elise van Rooij.

Below: comparable material – pottery and a floral collar – from the

“Embalming Cache of Tutankhamun” discovered in the early twentieth

century and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Photo: RP.

chamber The coffins appear to have been used simply

as storage chests, though they could not have been

low-ered down into the chamber full The work in filling this

chamber would have been extensive and indicates the

importance the objects had, to someone

There will no doubt be many theories about where

these objects came from and who they were made for If

we are lucky, the answer may be revealed by the study of

the material This does, of course, pose an intriguing

question If this chamber is a cache of funerary

equip-ment and items from Amarna, then where are all the

bodies? There is the distinct possibility that the Valley of

the Kings is far from exhausted and there may, as some

people have argued, be Amarna cache tombs still to be

found there

The Memphis team and their Egyptian colleagues

have laboured long and hard on this tomb and are to be

congratulated on their work Inevitably in the world of

Egyptology, the excavation has posed more questions

than given answers, but has nevertheless added a new

and important chapter to the history of the Valley of the

Kings and a fascinating era of ancient Egyptian tion

civilisa-A special study season will begin early next year whenmore work and conservation on the objects will be car-ried out by the Memphis team

Visit the official Websites:

KV-10.com and KV-63.com

Below (and main cover image): the face of coffin F, the

best-pre-served in the tomb, and nicknamed “The Princess” by team Chief

Conservator, Nadia Lukma

Photo: courtesy of the University of Memphis Mission.

On Friday 10 February 2006, Egypt’s Supreme

Council of Antiquities made public at last whathad been rumoured among Egyptologists formany months: the discovery of a new and completely

undisturbed tomb in the Valley of the Kings, located

beneath ancient workmen’s houses outside the entrance to

the long-known sepulchre of pharaoh Amenmesse

KV63, as it soon became known, represented the first

new tomb to have been found in the royal Valley since thediscovery of Tutankhamun by Lord Carnarvon andHoward Carter in 1922

Six months later and the KV63 chamber stands fullycleared, revealed (to evident media disappointment) not

as a burial proper but as an embalmers’ cache of surpluscoffins and mummification refuse dating from the veryend of the Amarna period It is an interesting find – and

Just as the clearance of tomb KV63 in the Valley of the Kings has been completed comes news from

Dr Nicholas Reeves, Director of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project, of another

possible new tomb in the heart of the Valley.

Plan of the central part of the Valley of the Kings, showing the areas excavated by the Amarna Royal Tombs Project and the approximate position of “KV64”

as established by the ground radar survey Map by Shin’ichi Nishiyma, copyright and courtesy of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project.

Tutankhamun Rameses VI

far more significant than the commentators seem to haverealised For what KV63 clearly signals is the existence inthe Valley of the Kings of yet another tomb – one con-taining the burial(s) to which these embalming materialsrelate And this further tomb is one upon which theAmarna Royal Tombs Project (ARTP) is potentially able

to shed some intriguing light

Observant followers of the KV63 story will havenoticed that ARTP had some small involvement in thatparticular find – not as the tomb’s physical discoverers,who were of course a University of Memphis mission led

by Dr Otto Schaden, nor as KV63’s excavators, but as theteam that first pinpointed the existence of an anomaly atthis spot in 2000, using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) The KV63 anomaly looked to us at that time very muchlike a void – a tomb – but we could not be certain Time,

we believed, would tell: it was a feature we had earmarkedfor future investigation as and when our project, workingsystematically, reached that particular part of our conces-sion But then – crisis! Politics intervened, and ARTPfound itself out in the cold

However disappointing it was for ARTP to have missedthe chance of excavating KV63, the physical location ofthat tomb by Schaden’s team was for our projectimmensely helpful Not only did it confirm that the theo-

ry of further Amarna burials, which had been driving usthese past years, was indeed soundly based, but it provid-

ed also the vital corroboration needed properly to ate the output of our 2000 GPR survey After the uncov-ering of KV63, it was possible to assess, with a great dealmore insight than previously, what our team’s GPR hadand had not revealed

evalu-The practicalities of GPR survey are straightforwardenough; the key to the process is a sober analysis of thedata generated ARTP were lucky: through friends andcolleagues in Japan, we were able to enlist the services ofHirokatsu Watanabe, one of the most experienced GPRspecialists in the field, with impressive results to his credit

at sites in Japan itself and at the rich royal cemetery-site

of Sican in Peru Watanabe’s radar survey was not onlysystematic and thorough, taking in most of the ARTPconcession and other parts of the Valley also, butextremely measured in its conclusions

The GPR equipment Watanabe employed for theARTP Valley survey was a customized 400 MHz system.The way the technology works is as follows: an electro-magnetic wave is emitted downwards (at pulse intervals ofsix nanoseconds) from a boxed antenna dragged along theground; the reflection echo is received and displayed on amonitor as a traverse profile

This raw data is recorded for subsequent laboratory

nested arcs; a ditch a cross-pattern above a couple of

nest-ed arcs; and a void or underground chamber a distinctive

pattern of radiating arcs

The most recent of ARTP’s GPR readings to be

analysed by Watanabe is shown opposite It is an image

that has caused much excitement in recent weeks because

its radiating arcs clearly indicate a void – which in a

ceme-tery context almost certainly means a tomb The feature

itself is located not far distant from KV63, at a significant

depth adjacent to the southeast corner of the modern

flood-barrier erected around Tutankhamun For ease of

reference ARTP has labelled this void “KV64” – the

inverted commas acknowledging the obviously tentative

nature of the identification at this stage

The possibility of yet another tomb in a cemetery which

was merely presumed to be exhausted should cause no

surprise: Belzoni wrongly declared the Valley to be

worked out in 1820; several tens of tombs later Theodore

Davis incorrectly ventured the same opinion in 1912; and

it is an assessment most have tended tacitly to assume

since the finding of Tutankhamun in 1922

By 1997, I had become convinced, from a library-based

analysis of the situation, that beneath the Valley floor

were concealed still one or more additional

Amarna-peri-od reburials – reburials analogous to that of the heretic

pharaoh Akhenaten discovered in 1907 in tomb KV55 in

the central part of the Valley This belief inspired me to

set up the Amarna Royal Tombs Project to investigate

selected parts of the site afresh, beginning in 1998

My particular quarry at that time (though priorities

changed when we discovered the extraordinary state of

preservation of the archaeological record beneath the

tourist paths) was the burial place of Nefertiti,

Akhenaten’s wife and co-regent, but also the whereabouts

of Akhenaten’s secondary consort Kiya and his second

daughter Meketaten These were all women upon whose

funerary furniture, I had concluded, Tutankhamun had

drawn, either for the preparation of his own burial, or forthe refurbishment of Akhenaten’s, before the young kingre-interred the ladies’ bodies close by

It is a question bound to be asked: could it be that theradar image now before us represents not only a tomb,but a tomb containing the body or bodies of one or more

of these missing Amarna women – the burials for whichARTP had been searching since 1998? It is at least a pos-sibility, and all the more fascinating since the site hasclearly not been disturbed since antiquity

The temptation to investigate this new and potentiallysignificant feature in the Valley of the Kings will undoubt-edly be strong If Egyptology decides to do so then let it

be cautiously, in the right way and at the right time, andnot at the expense of the immensely important overlyingstratigraphy

The work requires a strategy; there is an obvious need

to consult widely in advance; and the excavators – ever they may be – must be certain, before any workbegins, that they are physically capable of attaining allpossible objectives, with adequate funding, expert staff,and access to every sort of technology

who-The Valley of the Kings is no ordinary site; the stakeshere are incredibly high It was the fifth Earl ofCarnarvon, Carter’s sponsor, who commented that youeither find great things in the Valley, or nothing at all.ARTP may have found nothing – that possibility surelyexists; but then again we might, in all seriousness, be inthe presence of a second Tutankhamun – another find ofquite extraordinary importance, containing a wealth ofmagnificent burial equipment; a tomb hermetically sealedand preserving air samples, smells, pollen, insects,microbes, dust – an entire ancient environment of ines-timable scientific value We should recall that in the case

of Tutankhamun the treasure was rescued, but the tial of the tomb’s more fugitive data was lost forever whenthe excavators excitedly broke through the sealed door-

poten-Opposite top:

Hirokatsu Watanabe, the GPR

specialist, with his equipment in

the Valley of the Kings in

2000.

Opposite bottom:

“KV64” as revealed by the

ARTP’s 2000 radar survey.

Images copyright, and

courtesy of, the Amarna

Royal Tombs Project.

Right:

the entrance to the tomb of

Rameses VI and the retaining

wall around the entrance to the

Tomb of Tutankhamun,

show-ing the approximate location of

possible tomb “KV64”.

This photo was taken before the

latest flood-protection measures

were introduced and a “roof ”

built over the entrance to

Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Photo: RP.

Rameses VI Tutankhamun

“KV64”?

way to peer in In 1922 they knew no better; Egyptologists

today have no such excuse

If there is to be another Tutankhamun, then we must be

prepared Whatever “KV64” eventually turns out to be,

we have, for the present, to take it seriously; we cannot

risk selling it short

(Thames and Hudson, 1996)

For further information on the excavations and work ofthe ARTP in the Valley of the Kings, visit the web site

www.valleyofthekings.org

This news, and Nicholas Reeves’s views, seem, so far at least, not

to have created as much interest as might have been expected.

There have been the beginnings of a healthy debate on the

sub-ject in some of the on-line Egyptology chat rooms, and reports

have appeared in the press, although not everyone is necessarily

in agreement.

There is, of course, the possibility that the radar images may

be misleading, and there may be no tomb at all, or that any tomb

might be empty, so perhaps no one should get their hopes up too

much at this stage, pending further investigations.

The news, though, has to be good for the SCA Further

exca-vation in the Valley of the Kings is probably inevitable,

especial-ly after the discovery of KV63, and to be able to plan and

under-take future work, with the knowledge that there might be a tomb

(possibly intact) in the area, can only be helpful.

The first decisions to be made are if and/or when any

investi-gation or excavation should take place There is even the time

and the opportunity to arrange, as some people have suggested,

an international conference of archaeologists and experts to pool

ideas and opinions.

Should “KV64” be Investigated?

Although there may be a new tomb in the Valley, it has lain there

untouched for over three thousand years, and a decade or more

of delay in excavation is but the blink of an eye in the historical

context There will undoubtedly be, however, pressure and a

genuine desire to excavate to see what is there The nature of the

contents of an Egyptian tomb are well known and our

knowl-edge of the likely state of preservation of any contents means

that the necessary archaeological techniques and technical skills

are substantially available now worldwide

When Should it be Excavated?

Whilst, therefore, it might be possible to excavate now or in the

near future, the matter is not that simple

The eyes of the world would, quite literally, be on any

excava-tion Over eighty years ago, the media caused the excavators of

the tomb of Tutankhamun many problems and the media

fren-zy would undoubtedly be worse today, given the desire for

“instant” and “live” news.

clear and, today, clearing a similar tomb could well take longer Conservation of objects would be critical, and all the resources necessary would need to be in place from day one Carter used a nearby tomb as a “laboratory” for his conservation work, and the Memphis team also had to do this Conditions and facilities in such temporary laboratories are less than ideal, and it could be argued that there would be the need for a purpose-built, state-of- the-art conservation laboratory to be provided before any work

is started.

There would be a desire for any objects to be put on display as soon as possible, as was done with the Tutankhamun objects This may not be possible now, for there is limited room in the current or planned museums – another factor that needs to be allowed for; and, of course, all of this will take time and cost a great deal of money.

One way forward might be for further surveys to take place A painstakingly thorough open excavation of the overlying area is essential before digging down to any tomb – the information within the stratigraphy is crucial, arguably more important than another tomb, although excavations by Carter in this area may have already disturbed some of the historical layers.

If a sealed tomb is found, it might be possible to drill into it

without disturbing any air-tight seal for tests on the ancient air and for any micro organisms, although this would be a difficult exercise (It was done at the sealed second boat pit at Giza sever-

al years ago.) It would also be possible, in theory, for cameras to

be used to look into the tomb without demolishing any doorways

or breaking seals

In this way, it would be possible to see what, if anything, the tomb contained and then to plan a more leisurely excavation, with better knowledge about the tomb contents and their condi- tion and with all the above problems addressed in full.

The SCA could pull together a team of Egyptian and national archaeologists and technicians and there would proba- bly be no shortage of people willing to offer their professional skills.

inter-In the meantime, the knowledge that something might be there may, for example, help to plan any future developments in

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