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Kees Scherer - Temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel, Egypt, 1965-1968

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Discovery of the tomb of Thutmose II

This week, archaeologists unveiled a momentous discovery—the long-lost tomb of Thutmose II, believed to be the final undiscovered royal burial site of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. This marks the first tomb of a pharaoh uncovered since Howard Carter’s legendary discovery of Tutankhamun’s resting place in 1922.

The tomb, belonging to Thutmose II, the fourth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and husband of the famed female ruler Hatshepsut, was unearthed by a British-Egyptian team led by Dr. Piers Litherland of Galashiels, Scotland.

The grandeur of the burial site was immediately evident, with a vast staircase and an imposing descending corridor signalling the tomb’s royal significance. “And part of the ceiling was still intact – a blue-painted ceiling with yellow stars on it. And blue-painted ceilings with yellow stars are only found in king’s tombs,“

- Dr Piers Litherland, an honorary research associate of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University and the field director of the exploration, told BBC's Newshour.

Accessing the burial chamber proved challenging. The team crawled through a narrow, 10-metre passageway, squeezing through an opening scarcely 40 square centimetres wide before reaching the inner chamber. Inside, they encountered a striking blue ceiling adorned with scenes from the Amduat, an ancient funerary text reserved exclusively for kings—confirmation that they had indeed entered the resting place of a pharaoh.

Definitive proof of Thutmose II’s burial came in the form of alabaster jar fragments inscribed with his name and that of Hatshepsut, marking the first objects ever linked to his interment. However, Dr. Litherland’s team theorizes that the tomb may have been flooded approximately six years after the burial, possibly prompting the relocation of its contents. The researchers believe they have identified a likely site for this secondary tomb, which may still contain untouched treasures.

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