![]() They do this using a number of techniques, from topographical surveys and traditional excavation to remote sensing.Īrchaeology can be a slow business but spectacular discoveries are still made on a regular basis: recent highlights include the revelation of the tomb of Ramesses II’s army general and the pyramid of a 13th-Dynasty princess. His tomb was the longest ever constructed in the Valley at more than 137 metres, and beautifully decorated throughout.Įvery year, dozens of archaeological projects are undertaken in Egypt, and they are not solely concerned with pharaohs – they are searching for evidence of how the most ordinary members of society lived too. One of the greatest of all pharaohs, Seti I ruled for between 11 and 15 years, re-established Egypt’s territory in Syria-Palestine and launched massive building projects at sites such as Karnak and Abydos. In any case, they were slowly being swallowed up by the sands, a very modern phase of the history of the site nonetheless becoming a part of its archaeology.īelzoni moved a little farther up the same branch of the Valley, where – at last – he made a discovery of the magnitude he had hoped for: the tomb of Ramesses I’s successor, Seti I. Looking southwards, the Step Pyramid, the world’s first monumental building in stone (and a creation of Imhotep) was very visible – tomb 3518 seems to have been built in precise alignment with it, adding weight to the idea that it might have been Imhotep’s own.Īs I prepared to leave the site, I noticed a series of narrow gauge railway carriages of the kind used by Emery and other archaeologists to carry the debris away from their excavations. The upper reaches of its preserved mudbrick walls emerged from the golden sands, which continued to swirl around them – as if they might swallow the tomb in a moment. Tomb 3518 – around which was found both a seal bearing the name of Imhotep’s king (Djoser) and a number of votive offerings made to a god of medicine and healing, which was probably Imhotep himself – was partly visible. Of the tombs Emery found, number 3508 was invisible, though I was able to get close to its position. To my surprise and delight, the main temple complex of the Sacred Animal Necropolis discovered by Emery remained recognisable from the photos I had seen. Having studied the archaeological maps and modern satellite images at length, I set out across the sands armed with an iPad and iPhone, heading roughly northwest from what remains of Emery’s dig house. In spring 2015, I set off for the plateau to attempt to locate, or at least get close to the site of some of the monuments that have been associated with Imhotep’s tomb. ![]() He wanted to find the tomb of Imhotep and had been drawn to the area by a combination of two types of evidence: some very large tombs of Imhotep’s time, and a scatter of ritual deposits indicating much later cultic activity of the kind one would expect around the temple of Imhotep, which texts tell us was in the area. The North Saqqara plateau was extensively excavated by Bryan Emery in the 1960s and early 1970s. Cooney said that she will discuss this topic more in an upcoming book called "Recycling for death" that will be published by American University in Cairo Press.Chris Naunton strides into the desert to find the architect and physician vilified by Hollywood The high priests of Amun, who effectively controlled parts of Egypt during the 21st dynasty, regarded Amenhotep I as an ancestor and may have displayed their affection for the pharaoh by placing this girdle on him, Cooney told Live Science in an email. It's possible that the 21st dynasty priests put the golden girdle on Amenhotep I, said Kara Cooney, an Egyptology professor at UCLA. The golden girdle "may be without direct parallels, but nearly all other royal mummies were completely robbed, so this doesn't mean very much," Dodson said, noting that other royal mummies may have worn similar girdles that were subsequently stolen. "It's all very interesting, but I'm not sure there's anything earth-shattering here," said Aidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol in the U.K. Live Science reached out to scholars not involved with the research. ![]() "This fact that Amenhotep I's mummy had never been unwrapped in modern times gave us a unique opportunity: not just to study how he had originally been mummified and buried, but also how he had been treated and reburied twice, centuries after his death, by High Priests of Amun," Saleem said. Most pharaonic mummies have been physically unwrapped or extensively studied using CT scans, the researchers said, noting that Amenhotep I was one of the few royal mummies that had not been examined in detail. Why were the ancient Egyptians obsessed with cats? In photos: A look inside an Egyptian mummy 3 Egyptian mummy faces revealed in stunning reconstruction
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