Researchers find tomb in Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt – The first tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut’s in 1922 contains five sarcophagi with mummies, breaking the nearly century-long belief that there’s nothing more to find in the valley where some of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs were buried.

The tomb’s spare appearance suggests it was not dug for a pharaoh, said U.S. archaeologist Kent Weeks, who was not involved in the University of Memphis team’s find but has seen photographs of the site. “It could be the tomb of a king’s wife or son, or of a priest or court official,” he said Thursday.

So far, authorities haven’t had a close enough look to know who is in the tomb. Workers have been clearing rubble to allow archaeologists to examine it.

Egypt’s antiquities authority has said only that the single-chamber tomb contains five wooden sarcophagi, in human shapes with colored funerary masks, surrounded by 20 jars with their pharaonic seals intact – and that the sarcophagi contain mummies, likely from the 18th Dynasty, some 3,300 to 3,500 years ago.

Further details were expected today, when antiquities chief Zahi Hawass was to unveil the tomb.

Photos released by the Supreme Council of Antiquities showed the interior of the tomb – the bare stone walls undecorated – with at least five sarcophagi of blackened wood amid white jars, some apparently broken. What appeared to be a sixth sarcophagus was set on top of two of the other coffins, though the council’s statement mentioned only five.

The tomb may provide less drama than the famed opening of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter, a discovery that revealed a treasure trove of gold artifacts along with the boy-king’s mummy. But it raises hopes that even more burial sites will be found in the Valley of the Kings.