Jill Kamil saw the documentary about the discovery and excavation of KV63 in the UK during July 2007. In this article she looks in detail at the programme. Here's a short extract:
It was quite by chance that I turned on the TV last summer and found myself watching the most gratifying coverage of an excavation I have ever seen. The subject of the documentary was an intact chamber at the bottom of a shaft not far from the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. No fewer than seven coffins were discovered -- two of them apparently intact -- along with 29 large storage jars. Since the step-by-step coverage of the excavation may not be screened again -- and even if it is, people may not have a chance to see it -- I shall describe the events that led up to the official opening of the large sealed coffin in an ongoing and enormously challenging project.Otto Schaden, an American Egyptologist who has cleared and re-investigated several known tombs in the western Valley of the Kings over a period of 30 years, made this remarkable discovery back in February 2006. The chamber with its contents lay about five metres underground and, while the storage jars in the foreground seemed to be sealed and intact, most of the coffins to the rear of the chamber were badly damaged -- apart, that is, from one large one, and one small, that appeared to be intact. What happened during the rest of the archaeological season, right through to the opening of the intact coffin, was filmed down to the last detail.
How was this possible? How did a whole year's filming take place when, according to the antiquities law, the Egyptian inspector who accompanies each mission is committed to writing a monthly report on the work procedures, the mission's commitment to the regulations, and progress of work?
See the above page for the full story.
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