Archaeologists discovered the great funeral chamber of the limestone of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh unidentified near the city of Abydos dating from 3,600 years for a chaotic period in the history of Egypt.
The discovery of the seven-meter tomb (23 feet) basement in the old necropolis of the Anubis mountain was announced by the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and Egyptian archaeologists. He marked the second discovery announced this year of an ancient Egyptian king.
The funeral chamber discovered in January in Abydos, an important city in ancient Egypt located about 10 km (6 miles) of the Nile, was naked – apparently for a long time by serious thieves. The name of the king once buried inside was initially recorded in hieroglyphic texts on the masonry in plastered at the entrance of the room alongside painted scenes showing the goddesses Sisters Isis and Nephthys.
“His name was in the inscriptions but does not survive the depredations of the former tombs of tombs. Some candidates include kings named Senaiib and Paentjeni, whom we know monuments in Abydos – they governed at that time – but whose tombs were not found,” said the University of Pennsylvania, the teachers Josef Wegner, one of the leaders excavation work.
In addition to the decorated entrance, the funeral chamber included a series of other pieces crowned by five meters (16 feet) vaults of Budbrick.
The grave dates from a time known as the second intermediate period which took place from 1640 BC at 1540 BC and weighed the Middle Kingdom and the new kingdom when the Egyptian pharaohs were among the most powerful figures in the region.
“The political history of the time is fascinating and not understood, a sort of” states at war “which finally gave birth to the new Egyptian kingdom,” said Wegner, curator of the Egyptian section of the Penn Museum.
Among these was the Abydos dynasty, which was a series of kings which governed part of Haute-Égypt-the southern part of the Egyptian kingdom.
“Egypt has been fragmented with up to four rival kingdoms, including the Hyksos of the Nile Delta,” said Wegner. “The Abydos dynasty was one of them. How it separated, then was reunited includes important questions of social, political and technological change.”
The tomb of the unidentified king is built within the largest tombs of tombs of an anterior and powerful pharaoh named Neferhotep I. Its architecture shows links with the anterior royal tombs of the middle of the middle and the second intermediate period, said Wegner.
“It seems that it is the largest and oldest of the Abydos dynasty group. There can be others in this same area next to the tomb of Neferhotep I,” said Wegner.
Wegner’s team previously discovered the tomb of another leader of the Abydos dynasty named Seneb-Kay in 2014.
“The grave of the new king is probably a predecessor of Seneb-Kay. There are others in the region. Work in royal cemeteries is slow and doubtful, so it takes some time for results,” said Wegner.
The excavations are in progress.
The second intermediate period began almost a millennium after the construction of the imposing pyramids Giza outside Cairo, which held the graves of certain pharaohs of the ancient kingdom. Many new Pharaoles of the Kingdom have been buried in the Valley of Kings near Luxor, including Tutankhamun – popularly known as King Tut – whose tomb of the 14th century BC and its complete content were determined in 1922.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on February 18 that an Egyptian-British joint archaeological team had identified an old tomb near Luxor dating from the 15th century BC like that of the New Kingdom Pharaon Thutmose II.
