Egypt Uncovers First Royal Tomb in a Century

Archaeologists have made a stunning discovery: the first royal tomb to be found in Egypt since King Tutankhamun's in 1922—though unlike Tut's tomb, this one is in rough shape. The entrance and main passage of the poorly-preserved tomb in the Wadi Gabbanat el-Qurud, southwest of the Valley of the Kings, were uncovered in October 2022 in the vicinity of tombs for Queen Hatshepsut, wife of King Thutmose II, and the wives of King Thutmose III, leading archaeologists to suspect it belonged to a royal consort, per Heritage Daily. However, a British-Egyptian archaeological mission has since found evidence that the tomb belonged to a "deceased king"—King Thutmose II, per CBS News.

Thutmose II, the fourth pharaoh of Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, ruled from 1493 BC until his death in 1479 BC. Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said inscriptions on alabaster vessels found in the tomb carry his name and identify him as the deceased pharaoh. There is also evidence that Hatshepsut— the king's half-sister as well as his wife, who ascended the throne after his death—carried out the pharaoh's burial rites, CBS reports. Thutmose II's mummy was not discovered within the tomb. It was found in the 1880s in the Deir el-Bahri cache, where it was likely moved after the tomb was looted in antiquity, and is now displayed at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

The tomb was exposed to flooding soon after the pharaoh's death, said Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian dig team. He said initial studies indicate much of the tomb's original contents were also moved as a result. Still, archaeologists found mortar painted blue with yellow stars, and writing from the Amduat, an ancient Egyptian funerary book used to help guide Egyptian royals into the afterlife, per CBS. "These are the first funerary objects ever tied to Thutmose II," Khaled said, per ZME Science. Work at the site is scheduled to continue for another two years, per Art Newspaper. Investigations are ongoing to determine where the tomb's other artifacts ended up. (More discoveries stories.)