Jared Moya
August 6th, 2006, 05:42 PM
A radar survey in 2000 had pinpointed KV63, the tomb excavated earlier this year. It has now been announced that this same radar survey may have revealed another tomb.
From 1998 to 2002, the Amarna Royal Tombs Project (ARTP), led by Nicholas Reeves, undertook controlled stratigraphic excavation and geophysical surveying in the central area of the supposedly worked-out Valley of the Kings. Its impetus was both theoretical and practical, according to the project's website (www.valleyofthekings.org). It was influenced by a study of the immediate post-Amarna burials Tomb KV55 and Tomb KV62 (Tutankhamun) and what these two tombs seemed to reveal about other possible burials of the period in the immediate vicinity. And it was driven by a physical threat that the rubble fill of the Valley, and along with it most of the archaeology, might be removed wholesale to combat the seriously damaging effects of flash-flooding on the open tombs. "My particular quarry was the burial place of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's wife and coregent (who, I concluded, had been buried in the Valley as and when she died)," says Reeves. Also of interest were the "whereabouts of Akhenaten's secondary consort Kiya, his second daughter Meketaten and other lesser members of the royal family who had originally been interred at El-Amarna." As the work progressed, however, Reeves discovered that extensive key areas in the Valley were archaeologically intact, and priorities necessarily changed.
But the project was brought to a halt in 2002. Reeves was falsely accused of involvement in antiquities smuggling and his permit was revoked. In August 2005, he was officially cleared of any wrongdoing by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), though not allowed to return to his work in the Valley. In the interim, the area under investigation by ARTP had begun to be excavated by Otto Schaden and a team from the University of Memphis, which had been at work on KV10, the nearby tomb of Amenmesse. In 2005, Schaden found the top of the shaft leading to KV63, not knowing that it had been detected during geophysical prospecting by ARTP in 2000. While admitting an understandable "obvious disappointment," Reeves states that it was "Otto Schaden who physically uncovered it and confirmed its character. Under those circumstances there can be no question that the credit for actual discovery should go to him and to the University of Memphis." Reeves immediately shared his geophysical evidence for the existence of KV63 with Dr. Zahi Hawass and the SCA and with Schaden and his colleagues. (For KV63, see the the excavation web site www.kv-63.com and our coverage, with links at www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/kv63/kv63.html.)
What Reeves did not reveal at this stage--because ARTP's survey data was still under review--was that the radar had revealed what appears to be yet another tomb some 15 meters due north of KV63. Reeves spoke to ARCHAEOLOGY about what this feature might represent and what the implications might be for future research in the Valley of the Kings.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/reeves.html
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/jpegs/reeves1.jpeg
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/jpegs/reeves2.jpeg
From 1998 to 2002, the Amarna Royal Tombs Project (ARTP), led by Nicholas Reeves, undertook controlled stratigraphic excavation and geophysical surveying in the central area of the supposedly worked-out Valley of the Kings. Its impetus was both theoretical and practical, according to the project's website (www.valleyofthekings.org). It was influenced by a study of the immediate post-Amarna burials Tomb KV55 and Tomb KV62 (Tutankhamun) and what these two tombs seemed to reveal about other possible burials of the period in the immediate vicinity. And it was driven by a physical threat that the rubble fill of the Valley, and along with it most of the archaeology, might be removed wholesale to combat the seriously damaging effects of flash-flooding on the open tombs. "My particular quarry was the burial place of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's wife and coregent (who, I concluded, had been buried in the Valley as and when she died)," says Reeves. Also of interest were the "whereabouts of Akhenaten's secondary consort Kiya, his second daughter Meketaten and other lesser members of the royal family who had originally been interred at El-Amarna." As the work progressed, however, Reeves discovered that extensive key areas in the Valley were archaeologically intact, and priorities necessarily changed.
But the project was brought to a halt in 2002. Reeves was falsely accused of involvement in antiquities smuggling and his permit was revoked. In August 2005, he was officially cleared of any wrongdoing by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), though not allowed to return to his work in the Valley. In the interim, the area under investigation by ARTP had begun to be excavated by Otto Schaden and a team from the University of Memphis, which had been at work on KV10, the nearby tomb of Amenmesse. In 2005, Schaden found the top of the shaft leading to KV63, not knowing that it had been detected during geophysical prospecting by ARTP in 2000. While admitting an understandable "obvious disappointment," Reeves states that it was "Otto Schaden who physically uncovered it and confirmed its character. Under those circumstances there can be no question that the credit for actual discovery should go to him and to the University of Memphis." Reeves immediately shared his geophysical evidence for the existence of KV63 with Dr. Zahi Hawass and the SCA and with Schaden and his colleagues. (For KV63, see the the excavation web site www.kv-63.com and our coverage, with links at www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/kv63/kv63.html.)
What Reeves did not reveal at this stage--because ARTP's survey data was still under review--was that the radar had revealed what appears to be yet another tomb some 15 meters due north of KV63. Reeves spoke to ARCHAEOLOGY about what this feature might represent and what the implications might be for future research in the Valley of the Kings.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/reeves.html
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/jpegs/reeves1.jpeg
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/jpegs/reeves2.jpeg