Archaeologists have found a pharaoh’s tomb in an Egyptian valley west of Luxor, Egypt’s ministry of antiquities announced this week, in what officials called the first excavation of a royal tomb since Tutankhamen’s burial chamber was unearthed over a century ago.
The newly identified tomb belonged to Thutmose II, who is believed to have reigned around 1480 B.C. It was “the last missing royal tomb of the 18th Dynasty,” the Egyptian ministry said in a statement.
The excavation was a joint project by Egyptian and British researchers that began in 2022, when the entrance and main corridor of the tomb were found.
The archaeologists at first thought the tomb belonged to a royal consort, because of its location near the burial places of royal wives and that of Hatshepsut, a queen who took the throne for herself after Thutmose II’s death.
The tomb was also in an unlikely place for a king’s burial: beneath two waterfalls and at the bottom of a slope, during the much wetter conditions of the 15th century B.C.
But evidence from within the tomb showed that it had in fact been built for a king, including fragments of alabaster jars naming Thutmose II as the “deceased king,” and inscriptions naming Hatshepsut. Part of the ceiling was still intact, too, showing blue paint with yellow stars on it, which the archaeologists said were only found in king’s tombs.
“Sometimes discoveries are made, but only later does their true significance become clear with additional exploration,” said Peter Der Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology at Harvard who was not involved in the excavation.
He noted a similar case when, a few decades ago, a tomb in the Valley of the Kings turned out to be “larger and more unusual than anyone had previously realized.” It turned out to have been built for the many sons of Ramses II, one of the most powerful pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
Thutmose II, Professor Manuelian said, “lived during a fascinating period of Egyptian history: the imperialistic and cosmopolitan 18th Dynasty.” His reign was perhaps overshadowed by those of his father, his son and his queen, who reigned for nearly 20 years and built a major temple and tomb for herself.
“We’re still trying to understand the ins and outs of this era,” Professor Manuelian said, “and a ‘new’ tomb will doubtless provide us with additional clues.”
Despite the ministry’s assertion that this was the first such discovery since 1922, not everyone will agree: Archaeologists reported finding pharoahs’ tombs in 1940 and in 2014. A member of the recent research team did not immediately respond to questions seeking clarification.
Nonetheless, the secretary general for Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mohamed Ismail Khaled, described the find as one of the most significant in decades. “This is the first time funerary furniture belonging to Thutmose II has been discovered,” he said in a statement.
But unlike Tutankhamen’s tomb, whose chambers were found packed with artifacts during a 1922 excavation, the tomb of Thutmose II had been all but emptied out.
The archaeologists believe that it flooded shortly after the king’s death, and that its contents were moved to another location. (The mummified remains of Thutmose II were found at Deir el-Bahari, a mortuary complex, in the 19th century.)
“Water damage caused severe deterioration, leading to the loss of many original contents, which are believed to have been relocated during ancient times,” according to Mohamed Abdel Badie, the head of the Egyptian side of the archaeological mission.
He said that archaeologists had been able to restore parts of fallen plaster “adorned with intricate designs, including blue inscriptions, yellow star motifs and elements of the Book of Amduat, a key religious text used in royal tombs.”
