The last missing tomb from this wealthy Egyptian dynasty has been found
The tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose II is the first royal crypt discovered in recent years, and scientists have new powerful tools to analyze it.
For the first time in years, archaeologists have stepped inside the tomb of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh—to be greeted by hallmark hieroglyphs on the walls and traces of a faded celestial mural on the ceiling painted thousands of years ago.
Last week, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that a joint British and Egyptian archaeological team had uncovered the new find, which could change modern understandings of the ancient kingdom at a critical time in the 15th century B.C. It also highlights how Egyptology has changed from its origins in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the western word was ablaze with news of the treasures of this ancient civilization.
How was the tomb discovered?
The new find is not, as some have suggested, the first royal tomb discovered in Egypt since Tutankhamen's in 1922—the tombs of three pharaohs who lived about 3000 years ago were discovered in 1939 and 1940 amid ruins in the ancient Nile Delta city of Tanis, and four small royal tombs from the little-known Abydos Dynasty were found in 2014.
But it is the first since Tut's found near the Valley of the Kings, an ancient royal graveyard a few miles west of modern Luxor in southern Egypt, where many powerful pharaohs and their families were buried in tombs cut into the desert cliffs. The Valley of the Kings was part of a vast "necropolis" or "city of the dead" beside the Nile and the ancient city of Thebes, the capital of Egypt at different times and center of worship of the god Amun.
Archaeologists first discovered the tomb's entrance and passageway in October 2022 during explorations of a different tomb cut into the cliff above it. The passageway led to the tomb itself. Initially, researchers thought it belonged to a queen or lesser royal.
But University of Cambridge archaeologist Piers Litherland, who led the excavation, points to two features that confirm it was the tomb of a pharaoh: walls decorated with hieroglyphic tracts from a kingly funereal text known as the "Amduat" and plaster fragments of a blue ceiling painted with yellow stars, a representation of the night sky. Finally, inscriptions on fragments in the rubble of alabaster "duck vessels"—small stone or pottery jars shaped like ducks that the ancient Egyptians used to hold cosmetics, perfumes, and ointments—identified the pharaoh as Thutmose II.
Who was Pharaoh Thutmose II?
Little is known about Thutmose II, who reigned as pharaoh from about 1493 B.C. until about 1479—more than 100 years before Tutankhamun lived, but part of the same 18th Dynasty of Egyptian kings. His rich collection of grave goods, which might be equal to Tut's, was removed from the tomb thousands of years ago, probably when priests relocated and reburied the king's mummy to protect it from flooding about 500 years after his death, Litherland says.
The reburied mummy and those of other pharaohs—royal reburials were relatively common—were discovered nearer Thebes in the nineteenth century, and medical scans of his mummy a few year ago suggested Thutmose II may have died from heart failure. But the original tomb of Thutmose II had never been found, although Egyptologists knew that he must have had one. "It is the last missing tomb of the kings of the 18th Dynasty," Litherland says.
The newfound tomb lies a little more than a mile west of the Valley of the Kings and "fills a gap" in the archaeological understanding of the ancient necropolis; it also suggests that the same area may hold the original tombs of other pharaohs, such as Thutmose I and his predecessor Amenhotep I, Litherland says.
What kind of ruler was Thutmose II?
Thutmose II reigned in the shadow of his father Thutmose I, a powerful pharaoh who helped establish ancient Egypt's New Kingdom after a period of crisis and instability. Records indicate that Thutmose II led successful military campaigns that cemented the conquests of his father in Nubia and Syria.
Some argue that Thutmose II is a contender for the unnamed pharaoh in the Book of Exodus who tried to pursue Moses and the Israelites across the Red Sea. But there is no evidence the biblical events happened, and in any case the account aligns better with a later pharaoh like Merneptah or his father Ramesses II, says Nicholas Brown, an Egyptologist at Yale University.
Thutmose II may be most famous as the husband—and half-brother—of the powerful Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, who ruled as pharaoh for more than 20 years after his death and may have presided at his funeral. His son, Thutmose III, born to a different royal wife, was also known as Thutmose the Great, and ruled at first as a co-ruler with his aunt and step-mother Hatshepsut but later became an important king in his own right.
Experts on ancient Egypt are thrilled: "It's always exciting to learn of new discoveries in the Valley of the Kings," says Peter Der Manuelian, an Egyptologist at Harvard University. "This tomb will no doubt provide more evidence for piecing together the historical dynamics around the royal family at this time."
Why Egyptian royal tomb discoveries are so rare today
Many Egyptian royal tombs were looted for the treasures they contained, which is why some pharaohs were reburied elsewhere; and the blood-curdling curses inscribed at some Egyptian tombs seem not to have deterred later tomb robbers. Wealthy Egyptians had been buried with valuable grave goods for thousands of years by the time of the 18th Dynasty, and "I think people had figured out that these curses didn't really hurt," says Egyptologist Betsy Bryan, a professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University.
But Litherland does not think this particular royal tomb was ever looted. "The signs of robbery are unmistakable," he says. Looters unwrapped mummies while searching for amulets, left bandages astray, and broke "shabti" figurines. But the newfound tomb of Thutmose II contains no such signs. Instead, Litherland think the grave goods were reburied in a "second tomb" near the first when priests moved the king's mummy to a different location nearer to Thebes. And he thinks he knows where these ancient treasures now lie, although the spot has yet to be excavated. For now, research into the tomb of Thutmose II will continue.
The evolution of Egyptology
The new discovery shows how Egyptology has changed since its beginnings in "Egyptomania" in the nineteenth century. In its early stages, archaeologists seemed to uncover another pharaoh's tomb almost every week, but few have been found in recent decades. Instead, many archaeologists now focus on the lives of ordinary ancient Egyptians, while the newfound tomb shows "there are still many wonderful things to be discovered in Egypt, even after nearly 200 years of excavations and explorations," Brown says.
As well as studying the mummies of Egyptians who were not royals, new scientific techniques—including x-ray tomography and ancient DNA analysis—can now be applied to Egyptian mummies and artifacts that have already been discovered, sometimes with astonishing results. "The fact that we are able, for example, to virtually unwrap a mummy and learn about that person's life, health, age at death… is amazing," Brown says.
Such techniques have already been applied to artifacts from the tomb of Thutmose II; the results include the revelation that a walking stick inscribed with the pharaoh's name was made from African blackwood (Dabergia melanoxylon), also known as "Pharaoh's ebony"—a luxurious wood imported from the far south and used in ancient Egypt to make high-status objects. "The discovery of these artifacts sheds further light on the craftsmanship and trade networks of this key period in ancient Egyptian history," Brown says.
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