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Tomb's last coffin holds mystery, not mummy

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 29, 2006

LUXOR, Egypt - Archaeologists had hoped that the first tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 80 years would hold the mummy of King Tut's mother. They opened the last of eight sarcophagi Wednesday, revealing no mummies but finding something almost as valuable: embalming materials and ancient woven flowers.

Hushed researchers craned their necks and media scuffled inside the hot underground stone chamber as Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass slowly cracked open the coffin's lid - for what scientists believe is the first time in more than 3,000 years.

But instead of a mummy, the coffin revealed a tangle of fabric and rust-colored, dehydrated flowers woven together in laurels that looked likely to crumble to dust if touched.

The flowers are probably the remains of garlands, often entwined with gold strips, that ancient Egyptian royals wore around their shoulders in both life and death, said Nadia Lokma, chief curator of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

"It's very rare. There's nothing like it in any museum. We've seen things like it in drawings, but we've never seen this before in real life," Lokma said.

Dug deep into white rock, the tomb is known only by the acronym KV63 - the 63rd tomb found in the valley, a desert region near the southern city of Luxor used as a burial ground for pharaohs, queens and other nobles between 1500 and 1000 B.C.

The burial chamber was discovered accidentally last year by U.S. archaeologists working on the neighboring tomb of Amenmeses, a late 19th Dynasty pharaoh. It was the first uncovered since the famed tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.

Scientists cut a hole into the tomb's door and got their first glimpse into the 12-foot-by-15-foot chamber in February. Since then, the lids of seven of the coffins had been cracked open one by one, revealing pottery shards and fabric but no mummies.

Lokma hoped hieroglyphics would help scientists identify whom the coffins and tomb were made for and what happened to the bodies.

They will now begin analyzing the contents and transport the newly opened coffin and two others up a steep shaft to higher ground, where the five other sarcophagi have already been placed and where guards stand watch 24 hours a day, Lokma said.

The discovery broke the long-held belief that nothing is left to dig up in the Valley of the Kings.

Hawass said he believed the new tomb could have belonged to King Tut's mother. Closely related Egyptian royals tended to be buried near each other, and the graves of the rest of Tut's family have already been found, he said.

[Last modified June 29, 2006, 06:39:30]