Uncover the secret of the Valley of the Kings

Hoping to find a royal mummy in the Valley of the Kings rises this week when a small gilded sarcophagus is revealed in the mysterious room called KV63.

Archaeologists study the baby-shaped sarcophagus.( Photo: Discovery )

Discovered in February by a team of archaeologists at the University of Memphis, headed by Otto Schaden, KV63 still contains many mysteries.

Buried 4 meters deep in the rock pile, only 4.8 meters away from King Tutankhamun's resting place, the room became the 63rd tissue found since the first map was created in the 18th century.

This was the first room discovered since the young king was found in 1922.

Since then, people have found in the room 7 wooden sarcophagi with colorful patterns, surrounded by 28 sealed clay pots.

Pottery and wine jars identical to the one found in King Tut's grave prove that it was from the 18th (1539-1292 BC) dynasty, the period of pharaohs like the warrior king Amenhotep I , Queen Hatshepsut, heretical prince Akhenaten, and young king Tutankhamun.

Initially, it was hoped to be high when the group found a mysterious place on the west bank of the Nile outside Luxor. It is presumed that it could be the burial area of ​​many pharaohs.

" It was one of the most exciting moments of my life when I first peeked into the tomb and saw the coffin in it, " said Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass.

However, joy did not last long. No mummy was found when the coffin was opened. Dust, pieces of broken pottery, linen and salt to be embalmed are sprawled inside instead of mummies.

" I believe KV63 is a storage room for items used during mummification ," Hawass said.

But the new finding shows that KV63 is not a conventional warehouse. Something strange happened here. Archaeologists found a few pots, containing pieces of pottery, that were smashed to pieces and scattered in the coffin. According to Schaden, it was strange that the embalmed people took the sealed jars, smashed them and placed them in the coffin.

The mystery grew thicker when people opened a coffin of a child-sized size. To the amazement of Schaden, the coffin did not contain mummies but filled with pillows. Hidden under the pillows, archaeologists found another infant-shaped, golden golden coffin and the quality was only of royal caliber.

The finding raises new questions: What is KV63 really? A royal Egyptian tomb? Is a storage room for embalming or something else?

Schaden believes that the final answer will come when the seal of the last coffin is broken. There was still the possibility that the sarcophagus contained a royal mummy.

Schaden remarked that if the last sarcophagus had a mummy, it was probably the person the mummified men wanted to hide. It could be Ankhesenamun, King Tut's wife. One of the pieces found in KV63 contains the word "pa-aten", part of her name.

MT