Announcement of New Tombs Found at Luxor

There is some media excitement about an announcement by Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities of a newly-discovered tomb on the west bank of the River Nile in Egypt’s southern province of Luxorthat has been unearthed by Egyptian and British researchers (AFP Egypt unveils ancient royal tomb in Luxor 14 January 2023). It is believed that it holds the remains of a member of the ryal family of the 18th dynasty.

“The first elements discovered so far inside the tomb seem to indicate that it dates back to the 18th dynasty” [...] Waziri said in a statement.[...] Piers Litherland of the University of Cambridge, head of the British research mission, said the tomb could be of a royal wife or princess of Thutmosid lineage. Egyptian archaeologist Mohsen Kamel said the tomb’s interior was “in poor condition.” Parts of it including inscriptions were “destroyed in ancient floods which filled the burial chambers with sand and limestone sediment,” Kamel added, according to the antiquities board’s statement.

Piers Litherland, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University and head of the New Kingdom Research Foundation, has been conducting some research in the fascinating Western Wadis (The Western Wadis of the Theban Necropolis: A Re-Examination of the Western Wadis of the Theban Necropolis: By the Joint-Mission of the Cambridge Expedition to the Valley of the Kings and the New Kingdom Research Foundation, 2013-2014 2015)

The wadis which lie to the west of the main Theban mountain were last officially explored by Howard Carter in 1916 and 1917. He suggested in a subsequent article that these wadis might contain the burial ground of the XVIIIth dynasty royal family members whose burials were then missing. The granting of the concession to excavate the Valley of the Kings to the Earl of Carnarvon, and the subsequent discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, meant that Carter never returned to the Western Wadis to test his theory. The burials of many members of the XVIIIth dynasty royal family remain missing to this day. Since Carter’s exploration of this area the evidence in these wadis has been examined by many people, both officially and unofficially, but this report represents the results of the first Ministry of Antiquities-approved attempt to re-address Howard Carter’s hypothesis.

What is interesting about this work (apart from the following in Carter's footsteps, and the fact that it presents new information about senior royal women*) is the evidence that it has produced of climate change in the Western Wadis of the Theban Necroplis. Work in Wadi Bairiya and its surroundings together with research in the other Western Wadis and Wadi 300, has produced evidence of a cycle of wetter weather in at least four periods, the most extreme of which was the XVIIIth dynasty (1550-1292 BC).

As well as advancing our understanding of this landscape and its development, this wetter weather may account for a marginal expansion in the hunting and gathering constituents in the economy and provide a model for explaining the extraordinary expansion of the economy in the early XVIIIth dynasty and its subsequent contraction through the XIXth and XXth dynasties (1292-1077 BC).

The AFP article containing the announcement also notes that " Egypt has unveiled several major archaeological discoveries in recent years, most notably in the Saqqara necropolis south of the capital Cairo" but that "critics say the flurry of excavations has prioritized finds shown to grab media attention over hard academic research". These discoveries have become a key component of Egypt’s attempts to revive its vital tourism industry, the country of 104 million inhabitants is suffering a severe economic crisis. "Egypt’s tourism industry accounts for 10 percent of GDP and some two million jobs, according to official figures, but has been hammered by political unrest and the Covid pandemic".

*"Investigation of the Wadi Bairiya shaft tombs has brought to light a hitherto unknown group of court women of the period of Amenhotep III, including a Great Chief Wife of the King, Nebetnehet, a Son of the King, Menkheperre, a Wife of the King, Henut, a Daughter of the King, Tia, and at least 28 other individuals whose burials were deliberately destroyed in pharaonic times".