Updates re KV63
I will update the blog just as soon as there is anything new and official to report, but I won't be adding links to sites or pages that have no information that hasn't laready been highlighted on the blog. See previous postings for information that has already been released.
Eye witness account
http://touregypt.net/teblog/luxornews/
Eye witness account
http://touregypt.net/teblog/luxornews/
Jane Akshar's Luxor Blog has an excellent eye witness account of the gathering of the "creme de la creme of Egyptology" at the tomb entrance, together with some excellent photos of the key participants. Her account gives a real sense of what it was like to be there from the emptiness of 6am to the media excitement when the discovery was officially announced after Dr Hawass arrived at 8am: "Dr Hawass was coming from Cairo to announce the find on the early plane I was told so I would be there when it opened. It opens at 6am and apart from Japanese tourists being sheppard around at breakneck speed I was the only person there. It was bitterly cold as only the desert can be and I could scarcely feel my fingers. It was easy to identify the area. The team from the University of Memphis had been working in and around the tomb Amenemeses, KV10 for years."
Her photos of the gathering itself are better than any I have seen in the media, and really succeed in conveying the excitment and enthusiasm of those directly involved in the find.
Occupants of KV63
There has already been considerable speculation about the identities of those who lie in the newly discovered tomb, and what rank they may have held. Marianne Luban has come up with one of the more interesting ideas about the date of the tomb. Her ideas are based on the photograph that has been circulated by the press of one of the mummies that can be seen clearly from the tomb entrance.
She suggests that the face on the coffin may bear the image of Tutankhamun. She points out that this should not come as a surprise, because faces shown on coffins usually bore the likeness of the reigning monarch during the New Kingdom (the period during which the Valley of the Kings was established and used). In her own words, "it is a 'high-end' coffin because of the gilded face, and still of the black type that characterizes coffins of the era of Amenhotep III." The individual under the painted face might therefore be a predecessor or contemporary of Tutankhamun. My thanks to Marianne Luban for permission to summarize some of her thoughts here.
These ideas fits in nicely with suggestions that the tomb was sealed at some point during the nineteenth dynasty. It will be fascinating to see what the analysis of the cartouches and texts on the coffins themselves reveal.
Other
Occupants of KV63
There has already been considerable speculation about the identities of those who lie in the newly discovered tomb, and what rank they may have held. Marianne Luban has come up with one of the more interesting ideas about the date of the tomb. Her ideas are based on the photograph that has been circulated by the press of one of the mummies that can be seen clearly from the tomb entrance.
She suggests that the face on the coffin may bear the image of Tutankhamun. She points out that this should not come as a surprise, because faces shown on coffins usually bore the likeness of the reigning monarch during the New Kingdom (the period during which the Valley of the Kings was established and used). In her own words, "it is a 'high-end' coffin because of the gilded face, and still of the black type that characterizes coffins of the era of Amenhotep III." The individual under the painted face might therefore be a predecessor or contemporary of Tutankhamun. My thanks to Marianne Luban for permission to summarize some of her thoughts here.
These ideas fits in nicely with suggestions that the tomb was sealed at some point during the nineteenth dynasty. It will be fascinating to see what the analysis of the cartouches and texts on the coffins themselves reveal.
Other
For some entertaining and, at this stage, entirely speculative opinions about the site and its contents, see the message board on the Hall of Ma'at website - they appear to be having a good time over there!
1 comment:
in a brief anounement to the radio, dr\ zahi hawas head of the supriem councel of antiques: said that the information about the new five mumies will be anounced in a monthe untill all of the restoration and documentaion of the new discovery compleated, but we still may knowe more information in a later anounments
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