The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has completed the revival of the 3,000-year-old gold mining city recently uncovered at Jabal Sukari, southwest of Marsa Alam City in the Red Sea Governorate.
This ambitious initiative lasted two years and was carried out in partnership with the Sukari Gold Mine administration.
It complied with all relevant legal and administrative protocols, and the Permanent Committee for Ancient Egyptian Antiquities approved it.
The project entailed extensive archaeological excavations, documentation, and restoration efforts to safeguard the architectural elements uncovered at the site.
To ensure their preservation, the structures were carefully relocated three kilometres north of their original location, beyond the boundaries of the modern mining zone at Sukari Mine.
Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Sherif Fathy expressed his enthusiasm for the discoveries, emphasizing the ministry's dedication to preserving Egypt's cultural heritage while supporting national development and economic progress.
"Excavations revealed a 3,000-year-old gold processing complex. The facility featured grinding and crushing stations, filtration and sedimentation basins, and ancient clay furnaces used for smelting the gold extracted from quartz veins," SCA Secretary-General Mohamed Ismail Khaled said.
Moreover, archaeologists discovered a residential district once inhabited by gold miners. This district included remains of homes, workshops, temples, administrative buildings, and bathhouses dating back to the Ptolemaic era.
Architectural remains from the Roman and Islamic periods were also found, underscoring the site's enduring historical significance.
The excavation yielded 628 ostraca inscribed with hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek texts and a collection of Ptolemaic bronze coins.
Additional findings included terracotta figurines depicting human and animal forms from the Graeco-Roman period and a collection of stone statuettes representing deities such as Bastet and Harpocrates.
Furthermore, archaeologists found five Ptolemaic offering tables, a diverse collection of pottery vessels used for daily life, perfumes, medicines, incense, beads made from semi-precious stones, and decorative items crafted from seashells.
"It is a significant discovery because it expands our understanding of ancient Egyptian mining techniques," Khaled expressed.
He explained that the findings offer invaluable insights into gold miners' social, religious, and economic lives in historical desert settlements.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Antiquities Sector head Mohamed Abdel-Badie said: "All the unearthed architectural elements of the city were relocated to a neighbouring location, spanning six kilometres north of the ancient city's original location along six feddans, to preserve the site's historical significance."
A visitor centre has also been established. It features large display screens showcasing the excavation process and findings and informational panels detailing the region's historical importance and the artefacts uncovered.
Why did Hatshepsut have her husband buried to the west of the Valley of the Kings, while she was buried in the valley itself?
Inscriptions with the name Thutmose II on pottery remains found in the tomb. One inscription says his wife — and future pharaoh — Hatshepsut had him buried here.(Image credit: Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)
The discovery of Thutmose II's tomb last week — the first burial of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh to be discovered within or near the Valley of the Kings since King Tutankhamun's tomb was found in 1922 — has left many unanswered questions.
Unlike dozens of early pharaohs who were buried in or around pyramids or later pharaohs who were interred at the Valley of the Kings, Thutmose II's tomb is on its own, more than 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) to the west of the Valley of the Kings. And because this tomb was flooded shortly after Thutmose II's burial, his mummy and the majority of his grave goods were removed by ancient officials and placed elsewhere — but their ultimate location is a mystery.
Yet another puzzle is why Thutmose II's wife and half sister, Hatshepsut — who later became pharaoh and was arguably the first ancient Egyptian ruler to be buried at the Valley of the Kings — chose to inter her husband elsewhere.
But the mystery archaeologists may solve first is one that is looming in front of them: whether a giant mound of rubble near Thutmose II's newly discovered tomb contains a concealed second tomb that holds the mummy of Thutmose II.
If there is a second tomb there then "this second tomb is likely to be complete and undisturbed," Piers Litherland, an Egyptologist at the University of Cambridge and co-leader of the team that found the tomb, told Live Science in an email.
Why wasn't Thutmose II buried in the valley?
Archaeologists originally found the tomb in October 2022, but it wasn't until a recent analysis of one of its grave goods that they linked it to Thutmose II, who ruled around 3,500 years ago. The artifact, a large alabaster ointment jar, has an inscription that says it was Hatshepsut who had Thutmose II buried in that location.
A translation of the inscription reads, "The god's wife the great chief wife Hatshepsut made this monument for her brother the perfect god the lord of the Two Lands [Thutmose II] given life enduringly the beloved Osiris," Litherland said.
Zahi Hawass, a former minister of antiquities who is not a member of the research team but studied the inscription, said it's still unclear why Hatshepsut had Thutmose II buried in this area, which is now known as Wadi Gabbanat El Qurud.
It's "a question why she buried him here and she built her [tomb] in the Valley of the Kings," Hawass told Live Science in an email. "It is very strange for her to bury him in this [area] that she and other kings did not use."
While Hatshepsut may have overseen the burial, it was likely Thutmose II himself who had his tomb constructed at this location, saidAidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol who is not involved with the excavation. He noted that "at this time the Valley of the Kings had not been adopted as the standard burial place" for Egyptian pharaohs.
It appears that Hatshepsut originally planned to be buried not far from Thutmose II. Dodson noted that there is a tomb located about 1,640 feet (500 meters) from Thutmose II's tomb that was built for Hatshepsut but was not used by her. The tomb was uncompleted, but has inscriptions indicating that it was built for her. "She only moved to the Valley of the Kings [when] she became [a] female pharaoh, seven years after her husband's death," Dodson said.
Litherland said tombs of other royal family members have been found in Wadi Gabbanat El Qurud and that tombs of other pharaohs may be in the area but haven't been identified.
Gay Robins, a professor emerita of art history at Emory University who is not involved with the dig, told Live Science that "Hatshepsut seems to be the first king to connect her burial with the location we now call the Valley of the Kings, so there is nothing odd about Thutmose II not being buried there."
The fact that Hatshepsut had Thutmose II buried away from her may lead one to speculate whether she disliked him; however there is no evidence for this, according to Filip Taterka, an Egyptology professor at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
"We know that Hatshepsut did not persecute the memory of Thutmose II in any way, quite to the contrary, she not only provided him with a burial — as the inscription from the vase mentioned above demonstrates — but also order[ed] to construct a funerary temple for him, in order to secure his funerary cult," Taterka told Live Science in an email.
Does Thutmose II have a second tomb nearby?
Another question the tomb discovery raises is whether Thutmose II has a second, undiscovered tomb nearby. The newfound tomb was largely empty; archaeologists found that the mummy and most of the grave goods were moved after the tomb flooded shortly after Thutmose II was buried.
Litherland told Live Science that the team is currently excavating a nearby mound that contains a pile of limestone and rubble. "We have reason to believe it was constructed to conceal something and that something is likely to be an important tomb," Litherland said. The pile is about 75.5 feet (23 m) tall, and it would have taken "vast effort and expense" to place so much rubble there, he added.
Litherland estimates it will take more than a month to excavate the mound and find out what lies underneath. "We don't, and can't, know that the second tomb of Thutmose II is there but there are signs which point suggestively in that direction," Litherland said. "Only [by] excavating the mound can we find out."
Live Science Contributor
Owen Jarus is a regular contributor to Live Science who writes about archaeology and humans' past. He has also written for The Independent (UK), The Canadian Press (CP) and The Associated Press (AP), among others. Owen has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto and a journalism degree from Ryerson University.
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.
Egypt's Valley of the Kings is part of a massive necropolis along the Nile that includes the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Thutmose II's wife and half-sister. The king's tomb was discovered in this necropolis, as well, about a mile west of the Valley of the Kings.
Photograph by rayints, Shutterstock
ByTom Metcalfe
February 25, 2025
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.
Editor's note: This story was updated on February 25, 2025, to include a lesser-known royal tomb found in 2014.
The American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California chapter, and the UC Berkeley Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures invite you to attend a Zoom lecture by Dr. Kara Cooney, UCLA:
