Field Work

Discoveries at the Tomb of Seti I
Al Ahram Weekly
Nevine El-Aref

An overview of the work, past and present, carried out at the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. Here's a short extract.

The most mysterious feature in the tomb, and one that has perplexed Egyptologists until today, is the long passageway found underneath Seti I's marble sarcophagus.

Why did the ancient Egyptians dig such a tunnel beneath the Pharaoh's sarcophagus? Was it to his treasure, or for religious purposes, or as a security precaution? What was the real purpose of the tunnel? And what did it lead to?

Belzoni and his team tried hard to answer these questions, but they concluded that the tunnel ran down to a depth of 100 metres into the bedrock. It was also theorised that the tunnel was an attempt to link the Pharaoh's burial chamber with the groundwater. This conjecture stemmed from the existence of a natural spring at the Osirion in the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, which provided a pool of water within the structure to symbolise the primaeval waters of creation.

In 1961 a local man, Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rasoul, began to excavate inside the tunnel.