Valley of the Kings, Week 2: May 10-15
This week the team in the tomb of Thutmose IV (KV43) began their long-anticipated work of sorting through the various mummified meat offerings (“victual mummies”). We were joined by Dr. Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo, who is a specialist in faunal remains. The team spent time carefully sorting, studying, documenting, and labeling the objects. So far, they have catalogued around 120 individual pieces (not counting the small fragments); this is exciting news, as this is one of the largest deposits of victual mummies known from ancient Egypt.
The work not only included examining the larger pieces of meat offerings, but also carefully sifting and sorting through the small fragments from the floor debris. Nicholas Brown and Saad Kenawy Mohammed (the team’s site supervisor) spent time sifting the debris in the tomb and sorting it into bags of wood fragments, desiccated animal flesh (fallen off the offerings themselves), linen bandages that once wrapped the offerings, and botanical remains. In future seasons we hope to bring on teammates who can properly study and identify all of these materials.
Additionally, the team began the process of carefully rehousing and properly storing other artifacts from Chamber Jb, including the “robber’s rope” that Howard Carter found in the tomb. When he first entered the tomb in January of 1903, Carter found this rope tied to a column in Chamber F and hanging down into the tomb’s Well Chamber (Chamber E). It is possible that thieves in antiquity did use this rope in order to access the lower chambers of the tomb. It is equally possible that the rope was installed by the workmen commissioned to systematically strip the tomb of any valuables and recover the body of the king to hide it away in one of the royal caches set up in Amenhotep II’s tomb (KV35).
Finally, Nicholas Brown also spent time this week working in the tombs of Horemheb (KV57) and Amenhotep II (KV35) to document and re-record the hieratic ink graffiti from these two tombs. What an exciting week on site!
Faunal remains specialist Salima Ikram, of AUC Egypt, studied poultry remains from the tomb of Thutmose IV (KV43) this week
Our site Inspector, Saad Kenawy Mohammed, helping to sift and sort through floor debris from where the victual mummies were originally stored
Project Director, Nicholas Brown, worked in the tomb of Horemheb (KV57) to record ink graffiti with infrared photography
