Rare find in ancient tomb
2006-06-30 11:37
Alfred de Montesquiou
Luxor - Archaeologists hoped the first tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 80 years would hold the mummy of King Tut's mother.
They opened the last of eight sarcophagi, revealing no mummies, but finding something almost as valuable: embalming materials and ancient woven flowers.
Hushed researchers craned their necks and media scuffled inside the stiflingly hot underground stone chamber on Wednesday as Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass slowly cracked open the coffin's lid - for what scientists believed was the first time in more than 3 000 years.
But instead of a mummy, as archaeologists had expected, the coffin revealed a tangle of fabric and rusty-coloured dehydrated flowers woven together in laurels that looked likely to crumble to dust if touched.
'I prayed to find a mummy'
Nadia Lokma, chief curator of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, said: "I prayed to find a mummy, but when I saw this, I said it's better - it's really beautiful."
She said that the flowers were likely the remains of garlands, often entwined with gold strips that ancient Egyptian royals wore around their shoulders in both life and death.
Lokma said: "It's very rare - there's nothing like it in any museum. We've seen things like it in drawings, but we've never seen this before in real life - it's magnificent."
Dug deep into white rock, the tomb was known only by the acronym KV63 - the 63rd tomb found in the Valley - a desert region near the southern city of Luxor, used as a burial ground for pharaohs, queens and nobles between 1500 and 1000 BC.
The burial chamber was discovered accidentally last year by the US archaeologists working on the neighbouring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th Dynasty pharaoh. It was the first uncovered since the famed tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.
Archaeologists cleaning up tombs
Otto Schaden, an Egyptologist from the University of Memphis, who found the tomb and heads excavations there, said: "For decades, archaeologists have been cleaning up tombs that were found earlier, so it's very exciting to discover something new."
Scientists cut a hole in the tomb's door and got their first glimpse into the 3 1/2-metre-by-4 1/2-metre chamber in February. At the time, they believed it contained seven sarcophagi, but Lokma said a total of eight were inside.
Since then, the lids of seven of the coffins - including a tiny one built for an infant and filled with feather-stuffed pillows - were peeled back one by one, revealing pottery shards and fabric, but no mummies.
With the last opened on Wednesday, the tomb still had more mysteries than answers. Lokma hoped hieroglyphs would help scientists identify who the coffins and tomb were made for and what happened to the bodies.
Termites had long ago devoured the wood of the final sarcophagus, leaving only a tenth-of-an-inch-thick crust of resin frozen in the likeness of its anonymous owner.
- AP