Now in Luxor: One of The Biggest Discoveries In Years...More than 20 Coffins Found at The West Bank

CAIRO - 15 October 2019: This morning, the Minister of Antiquities headed to Luxor accompanied by Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, to inspect the work of the archaeological mission of the Ministry of Antiquities in Agaban El-Assasif cemetery in the West Bank, which succeeded yesterday in unveiling a huge cache of colorful human coffins, the details of which will be announced next Saturday morning in a press conference in West Luxor.


This discovery is one of the largest and most important discoveries that have been announced during the past few years, as it includes so far more than 20 colored wooden sarcophagi, in a good state, where the colors and inscriptions are still in great state, almost untouched by time. They were found in two caches on one level above the other.


It is worth mentioning that the ministry announced the archaeological discovery through the Egyptian mission headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass, who said that since the mission started work in the Valley of the Apes in December 2017, it succeeded in finding for the first time the workshops for the manufacture and processing of funerary furniture for the tombs of the kings. Next to it was a storage pit which took the numbering (KVT) and in front of it was discovered a kiln to burn pottery and metal, which was found next to two silver rings, and large quantities of decorative elements used in the decoration of wooden coffins in the era of the eighteenth century, in addition to gold and some decorative elements that are called Horus' Suite.


Hawass added that work is underway in the western valley to search for the tomb of Queen Nefertiti and the tomb of her daughter and the wife of King Tutankhamun Queen Ankh Amon, and that the area between the tomb of King Amenhotep III and the tomb of King Ay is the area that is expected to contain the tombs of members of the family of the Amarna era.

He added that one of the most important discoveries of the mission was to find 30 specialized workshops for the manufacture and processing of funerary furniture before placing them inside the cemetery, in addition to a cemetery called KV 65 which was used to preserve some of the funerary tools and furniture, similar to the cemetery KV 54 adjacent to the tomb of King Tutankhamun, which was found inside it the tools used in the construction of royal tombs.


Hawass pointed out that the second mission, which works in the Valley of the Kings of the East is the biggest, and largest excavations took place in the Valley of the Kings after the excavations by the English archaeologist Howard Carter to search for the tomb of the young king, and that the mission is now working to uncover the royal tombs that have not been disclosed yet, in addition to the tombs of the wives and sons of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who were buried in the Valley of the Kings, because the Valley of the Queens did not begin burial there until the beginning of the nineteenth Dynasty.