{"id":267875,"date":"2025-03-27T09:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T09:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/tomb-of-unknown-pharaoh-is-unearthed-in-egypt\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T09:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T09:53:10","slug":"tomb-of-unknown-pharaoh-is-unearthed-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/tomb-of-unknown-pharaoh-is-unearthed-in-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomb of Unknown Pharaoh Is Unearthed in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/27\/multimedia\/27int-tomb-1-bhlc\/27int-tomb-1-bhlc-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Tomb of Unknown Pharaoh Is Unearthed in Egypt\" title=\"Tomb of Unknown Pharaoh Is Unearthed in Egypt\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Archaeologists have unearthed the huge tomb of an unknown pharaoh at an Egyptian necropolis, a team of researchers said on Thursday, in what they are calling the second discovery of a king\u2019s tomb this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The team of Egyptian and American archaeologists found the tomb, which the researchers estimate is 3,600 years old, nearly 23 feet underground at Abydos, one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt. The city, about 300 miles south of Cairo, was a burial place for early pharaohs and became a pilgrimage site in antiquity. A necropolis developed at Anubis Mountain to the city\u2019s south.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Researchers uncovered the tomb at the mountain, at the base of a high desert cliff where strong winds carry gusts of sand. In some places around the necropolis, sand has buried structures more than 16 or 19 feet deep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The burial chamber features a decorated entryway, several rooms and soaring 16-foot vaults made of mud bricks. It dwarfs a tomb unearthed at Abydos over a decade ago, which was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.penn.museum\/about\/press-room\/press-releases\/pharaoh-senebkay-discovery-josef-wegner#:~:text=PHILADELPHIA%2C%20PA%2C%20January%202014%E2%80%94,1650%E2%80%931600%20BC.\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">hailed<\/a> at the time as the first material proof of a \u201clost\u201d dynasty of kings there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s a new chapter in investigating this dynasty,\u201d Josef W. Wegner, a curator at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia and the leader of the American side of the excavation, said in an interview on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Egypt\u2019s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities briefly <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/egymonuments.gov.eg\/en\/news\/unveiling-of-a-second-intermediate-period-royal-tomb-in-abydos\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">described<\/a> the findings at Abydos earlier this month, but researchers at the Penn Museum announced more about their discovery on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Similarities between the newly unearthed tomb and the one discovered in 2014, which belonged to a king named Seneb-Kay, have led the archaeologists to conclude that the as-yet-unknown pharaoh may have been an earlier member of the so-called Abydos dynasty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the newly discovered tomb, painted scenes on plastered brickwork decorated the entrance to the limestone burial chamber, showing the goddess Isis and her sister Nephthys, who were often paired in funerary rites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis tomb and Seneb-Kay\u2019s tomb are the earliest surviving royal tombs that actually have painted decorations inside of them,\u201d Mr. Wegner said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But there were no identifiable skeletal remains at the newly unearthed site and, like a tomb found <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/21\/world\/middleeast\/egypt-tomb-archaeologists.html\" title=\"\">near the Valley of the Kings<\/a> earlier this year, the one at Abydos has suffered major damage over the centuries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At Abydos, grave robbers picked the tomb largely clean. A grand recess in the burial chamber for canopic jars \u2014 vessels for organs, typically held in a gilded box \u2014 stood empty. Archaeologists have found pottery and inscriptions around Abydos showing that, during the late Roman period around 1700 years ago, people were digging into tombs to extract the limestone, granite and quartzite within.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And although the name of the ruler in the newly excavated tomb had once been visible in yellow bands of hieroglyphic texts, the actions of ancient grave robbers had rendered it illegible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey did just enough damage to the decoration that we have just the very base of what would have been the identifying text columns,\u201d Mr. Wegner said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The frustrated team of researchers expressed \u201csome cuss words,\u201d Mr. Wegner added. \u201cBut the archaeological record doesn\u2019t always yield exactly what you hope for, so you keep going.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek, a professor of archaeology at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the research, called the new excavation \u201chighly significant\u201d and said it would add to what little is known about \u201ca fascinating period when Egypt was controlled by competing powers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The era was \u201cpolitically enigmatic,\u201d she said, defined by economic instability and warring kingdoms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It appeared to be \u201ca phase of warrior pharaohs fighting it out,\u201d Mr. Wegner said, noting that Seneb-Kay\u2019s skeleton suggested he may have died in combat. The period also laid \u201cthe groundwork for the great empire of the New Kingdom,\u201d when Egypt was reunited by the rulers of Thebes, he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The newly found tomb, Mr. Wegner said, could offer insight into how the Nile Valley, in the time before the New Kingdom, had gradually fragmented among rival rulers. The findings suggested, he said, that the Abydos dynasty was not \u201ca kind of flash in the pan where you\u2019ve got a handful of kings breaking off from whatever original territory they belonged to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the extent of the land controlled by those buried here is not known, \u201cthe Abydos dynasty kings only appeared to rule a region around the city, rather than all of Egypt,\u201d said Matthew Adams, an archaeologist who works on an unrelated project in the area. \u201cBut their use of the title of \u2018king\u2019 suggests they had aspirations to something greater.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Wegner said there are several candidates for who had been interred in this tomb, including two kings named Senaiib and Paentjeni who dedicated monuments at Abydos but whose tombs remain unknown. He added that the team would work to manage and protect the site, and that it had plans to keep excavating in search of other sites and tombs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s always our dream to find one that\u2019s intact or partially intact,\u201d he said. \u201cThere may yet be tombs like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/27\/world\/africa\/egypt-tomb-pharaoh-abydos.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archaeologists have unearthed the huge tomb of an unknown pharaoh at an Egyptian necropolis, a team of researchers said on Thursday, in what they are calling the second discovery of a king\u2019s tomb this year. The team of Egyptian and American archaeologists found the tomb, which the researchers estimate is 3,600 years old, nearly 23 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/27\/multimedia\/27int-tomb-1-bhlc\/27int-tomb-1-bhlc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[171692,3747,189464,110497,23471,189055,59596,205830,26899],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267877,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267875\/revisions\/267877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}