Egypt: They find a new tomb of an ancient monarch from 3,500 years ago in Luxor

A British-Egyptian mission has found a tomb of a former monarch which is believed to belong to XVIII dynasty (1575 and 1295 BC) west of the bank of the River Nile, at Luxor in southern Egypt.

The secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, said in a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities that “the importance of the find lies in the fact that the preliminary data inside the tomb indicate so far that it probably dates back to the time of Government of Thutmosis of the Eighteenth Dynasty”.

Now the next step will be to check the archaeological documentation of the tomb to finish verifying the dating.

For his part, the director of the archaeological site of the western valleys, Mohsen Kamel, explained that the tomb discovered “it is in bad condition from the rains that fell in ancient times which flooded the rooms with dense residues of sand and limestone, which led to the obfuscate their characteristics and records“.

The head of mission for the British side, Perez Lezerland, said in the statement that the discovered tomb could “belong to one of the women queens or princesses during the era of the Thutmoses, of which so far not much has been discovered”.

This era of the Eighteenth Dynasty is considered one of those of maximum splendor in the pharaonic civilization.

The discovery of this tomb is the latest in a series of discoveries that Egypt has promoted in recent years in the hope of attracting more tourists.

Another surprising find: crocodile heads inside the tombs

This was discovered by experts from the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archeology at the University of Warsaw nine headed crocodilewrapped in cloths in mortuary complexes thousands of years old, in the necropolis of Thebes.

The “extraordinary” find took place in a huge dump of rubble and archaeological remains left by American researchers in 1922 in Egypt.

The first tomb belonged to the chancellor Cheti, one of the most important officials of the court of Nebhepetra Mentuhotep II (2055-2022 BC), while the second is attributed to an anonymous vizier of the pharaoh’s court.

The presence of the reptilian remains inside the graves of officers is quite unusual and indicates the high position of the deceased.

The graves investigated revealed crocodile skeletal parts, including skull and jaw fragments, loose teeth, and osteoderms (bone plates on the skin).

The analyzes carried out showed that the remains came from Nile crocodile cubs (Crocodylus niloticus) about 5 meters long. This species is considered the largest and most dangerous of all sub-Saharan African crocodiles.

With information from EFE