Zahi Hawass: Adventures in the Valley of the Kings (Part II)
/_ October 16th 2008 _/
Many years ago, I was working as an Inspector of Antiquities in Luxor. One night, by the light of the full moon, I went with Sheikh Nagdy, the head of the guards for the Valley of the Kings, to climb El-Qurn, the pyramid-shaped mountain that rises above the valley. I went to sleep at the top of the mountain. At sunrise, I opened my eyes and looked at all of the tombs in the valley from the top of the mountain, thinking about all of the great discoveries that had been made there, and the many adventurers and archaeologists who had both good times and difficult ones. When I came down to the valley, I found Sheikh Nagdy waiting, laughing and drinking tea. He said to me, “I have never seen anyone climb the mountain at night.” I joined him, and he began to tell me many stories about the archaeologists who had worked in the valley, including ones that his father, Sheikh Abdel Maugoud, used to tell him. I even found out from him that Evelyn Herbert, the daughter of Lord Carnarvon, used to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun at night with Howard Carter. All of the books say that Evelyn loved Carter, but he did not return her affections. The sheikh’s story, however, shows that this is not true at all.
It seems that my dream to excavate in the valley has finally come true. Last November, I began the first Egyptian expedition ever to work there. I had my assistants whom I trained at Giza start the work under my direction. One of them is Afifi Rohiem, one of the most promising archaeologists in Egypt. We began our work in the spot where I had dreamed of excavating, between the tombs of Merenptah and Ramesses II. I believe that the tomb of Ramesses VIII could be located in this area.
The Valley of the Kings has only revealed one new discovery since the tomb of King Tut – 84 years later, Otto Schaden found KV63 in front of the young pharaoh’s tomb. Our excavation, however, is proving to be not only the first Egyptian expedition ever to work in the valley, but also one of the most scientifically important. When we started our excavation, we could feel from the beginning that the area was promising. We discovered a cut in the mountain, followed by stairs ending in a hole in the ground. It looks like the entrance to a tomb, and it is exactly similar to the entrance of KV63. We recorded many inscriptions nearby, some of which were already known and others of which were found for the first time. One tells us that a man named Userhat built a tomb for his father, the vizier Amennakht. Our work among the cliffs was very interesting. We found huge blocks, and it took us a long time to move them. After that, we found a manmade wall, below which was a shaft with stairs going down. This seems to be the entrance to yet another tomb. We also found many workmen’s huts – we know that the workmen used to live in the valley while they were cutting and decorating the tombs of the pharaohs. In one area, we found a round limestone base, with a hole in the middle where food and drink for the workmen would have been placed.
We had to stop our excavation at the end of May because of the heat. We will start again at the beginning of October, and finally open tombs KV64 and KV65. The valley will be crowded again with people, and secrets will be revealed for the first time. Nothing like this has been seen since the exciting discovery of the tomb of King Tut in 1922. It seems that I will move my office from Cairo to Luxor to supervise the excavation. I want people to read this column so that they can know how archaeologists, the good ones at least, can truly smell the dust of the past. Remember that even if we do not find that one of these two entrances leads to the tomb of Ramesses VIII, we know that many great royals, including Thutmose II and Nefertiti, along with the queens of Dynasty 18, were buried in the valley, but their tombs are also still unknown.
