Beneath the Sands of Egypt

Preface

1
The Tomb

2
From Here to There

3
First Impressions

4
Egypt on My Mind

5
Untying the Mundane

6
Frisking the Dead

7
The Curse of the Queen

8
In the Footsteps of the Giant

9
The Digger's Life

10
Adventures in Television Land

11
Pyramids in the Atlantic

12
A Return to an Ancient Valley

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

I
'M A FORTUNATE FELLOW.
Literally hundreds if not thousands of times, people have told me that I'm doing something they wish they could do. I'm living their dream, or part of it anyway, they tell me. I've never figured out a good response to such comments. I've gone to fantastic places, worked with fascinating people, and discovered, as Howard Carter once put it, “wonderful things.” Sadly, society can't realistically sustain millions of archaeologists and Egyptologists, but I can at least attempt to share the adventure and perhaps educate, entertain, and even inspire.

In this book I hope to do all of these things, and if I'm lucky, I'll succeed in one or two of them. Yes, I've been involved in some pretty great stuff. Serendipity, coincidence, and meeting the right people have all played a role, but so have creativity, ingenuity, preparation, and initiative. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” they say, and I hope you enjoy my sharing of some of my adventures, focused mostly on Egypt, which is without doubt one of the most intriguing of all lands on this gorgeous planet.

T
HE HAUNTING MELODY
of a Beethoven piano sonata played softly in the background as I gazed into the slit of darkness evolving before my eyes. I handed another small stone to Achmed, who in turn handed it up the ancient white steps to be added to the growing pile of rubble. Beethoven would no doubt have been incredulous that his
Appassionata
served as the sound track for such
a
remarkable scene: the opening of an ancient Egyptian tomb, in the famed Valley of the Kings. It was actually a reopening of this particular tomb, myself being perhaps the fourth person to have done so, I reckoned, over a period of over three millennia.

As I carefully removed the stones, I marveled at the situation in which I found myself. Here I was, in the most famous archaeological site in the world, following in the footsteps of earlier explorers who were likewise entranced by this ancient place. The vertical limestone walls of the valley soared nearby, their golden hues becoming
increasingly lighter due to the same intense summer sun that baked us as we worked in the vanishing late-morning shade. What tales these cliffs could tell, having borne witness for centuries to episodes of passionate human drama, the sweat of ancient workmen, the tears of the bereaved, and, now, the drama of modern archaeological discovery.

A view looking down the Valley of the Kings.
Denis Whitfill/Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) Valley of the Kings Project

Approximately thirty-four hundred years ago, one of the most powerful men on the planet, the mighty pharaoh, Lord of Upper and Lower Egypt, Akheperkare Thutmose, commanded that a secret tomb be constructed for his burial in the arid Theban mountains. Unfortunately, the pyramids of his predecessors now stood only as towering beacons calling out to the treasure-minded and had proved to be utter failures when it came to protecting the remains of those considered to be god-kings. Thutmose had
instigated a new strategy in the hope of better ensuring his eternal security by building a hidden tomb carved deep into the bedrock in a remote desert valley unseen by the masses with an immense peak hovering nearby, whose natural shape provided a symbolic pyramid over the royal grave. Thutmose's tomb would initiate the “Valley of the Kings” as the burial place for three dynasties of rulers during the historical period referred to as the New Kingdom, which would span approximately five hundred years, from about 1500 to 1000
B.C.
It was this royal cemetery that was the stage for our unfolding tomb opening. Just a few minutes' walk from where we were lies the tomb of the famous warrior pharaoh Rameses II and, not far beyond, that of Tutankhamun, the obscure, short-lived king whose virtually intact tomb brought him lasting immortality in the modern world. And just a few dozen yards from our dig is the original tomb of Thutmose I, a deep, dangerous subterranean sepulcher, expanded and later utilized by his daughter, the remarkable female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The early tombs in the valley were well hidden, often in fissures in the cliffs or in other places easily concealed. Those of the later pharaohs typically boasted large, obvious entrances carved into the valley's limestone. The magnificently painted corridors that followed led to an imposing stone sarcophagus holding the mummy of the king. Like the pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, too, in the long run, would prove to be a failure in guarding against the greedy. Many of its tombs would be robbed even while the cemetery was still in use.

As early as the third century
B.C.
, several of the tombs were tourist attractions to Greek and Roman sightseers who came to marvel at the remains of the past, much as we do today. Many of them even left evidence of their visit in the form of graffiti, which can still be seen and read today scrawled on the walls of several tombs.

A view of the general vicinity of KV 60. The man in the photo stands above the location of the tomb. The entranceway to KV 19 was cut directly over KV 60, and its door is situated to the right. Just above, in the shadow of the cliffs, is KV 20, the royal tomb of the pharaoh Hatshepsut.
PLU Valley of the Kings Project

Some of the valley's tombs would later serve as austere housing for reclusive Christian hermits, and some would suffer the devastations of flash floods and other natural and human indignities. Ultimately, few of the pharaohs survived in their intended final resting places. Most of their ravaged mummies were gathered up by
ancient priests, rewrapped, and stowed in secret caches where they have been rediscovered during the last century or so.

Like most archaeology in Egypt, the Valley of the Kings has a rich history of exploration. Although the location of the valley was long known to European travelers, it wasn't until the arrival of Giovanni Belzoni in 1816 that excavations actually began in our modern era (more on him in another chapter). Then, in 1827, John Gardner Wilkinson wandered about the valley with a container of paint, boldly numbering each known tomb as he went along and establishing a numbering system that provided a ready frame of reference for the scholars and archaeologists who followed. Although Wilkinson got only as far as the number 21, the system would eventually extend to 63, the number that has been assigned to the last new tomb discovered as of this writing, a bizarre cache of mummyless coffins uncovered in 2006.

While the Valley of the Kings is certainly one of the most celebrated sites of antiquity on earth, most people (archaeologists included) are unaware that among the thirty or so beautifully decorated royal tombs lie an approximately equal number of typically small and uninscribed tombs, whose very presence in the valley actually bespeaks some sort of great importance. Some consist merely of a shaft leading to a single rectangular burial room, while others contain a corridor or two and steps that eventually lead to a final chamber. These tombs, whose blank walls routinely render their deceased occupants anonymous, were until recently considered of little interest to Egyptologists. Readily identifiable art and writing on the walls of the bigger royal tombs are certainly alluring and have long attracted the majority of scholarly attention.

The particular tomb we were currently excavating was nameless. It was simply known as Tomb 60—or KV 60, to use the “Kings' Valley” prefix commonly appended by Egyptologists to designate a
tomb in the valley rather than tombs in other ancient Egyptian cemeteries. When English archaeologist Howard Carter stumbled across this tomb in the spring of 1903, he was unimpressed by its size, its lack of decoration, and its looted interior. Carter was looking for bigger and better things: large royal tombs, for instance, with painted walls and nicely preserved artifacts. Nineteen years later Carter would hit the archaeological jackpot when, on just the other side of the valley, he discovered the burial rooms of someone who has since become one of the world's great ancient celebrities, Tutankhamun—“King Tut.” Just as they did in 1922, people flock to see Tut's tomb, but few among them have heard of KV 60, or the many others of the small and undecorated sort.

 

M
Y OWN FIRST VISIT
to the Valley of the Kings was on a scorching-hot July afternoon in 1981, eight years before I would encounter Tomb 60. I rented a dilapidated bicycle on the west bank of the Nile across from the modern town of Luxor and traveled a road headed straight west along green fields before turning north past two immense seated stone statues, which are most of what is left of the mammoth mortuary temple to the great pharaoh Amenhotep III. Pedaling by the village of Qurna, with its mud-brick houses built among the tombs of an ancient cemetery, I biked a long uphill stretch through a dry, winding ravine. The heat reflecting from the asphalt road added to the strenuous misery of the ride, but eventually I reached the narrow entrance to the valley. Rows of closed souvenir kiosks reminded me that this remote place was very well known to tourists, who had abandoned the scene earlier in the day to seek the cool refuge of their luxury hotels on the opposite side of the river. At midday the valley was empty except for a few tomb guards,
gaffir
s, napping in the shade.

Tutankhamun's tomb was at the top of my agenda, and I walked immediately to the stone wall surrounding its entrance, so familiar to me from years of studying photographs. I wanted to experience the tomb as Howard Carter would have. As I entered the enclosure, a
gaffir
clad in dark robes sat up from his prone position and checked my ticket before resuming his slumber. I remember counting the steps, sixteen, as I descended to the spot where Carter had stood and observed an ancient door closed with plaster and stamped with the seal of the ancient necropolis, a jackal recumbent above nine bound and kneeling captives. Carter would have then sent a telegram to his sponsor in England, Lord Carnarvon, and patiently awaited his arrival before the two breached the door together to find a tunnel filled with rubble guarding another sealed door. I walked down this corridor and paused at the second doorway. Here is where Carter would have taken his first peek into the tomb that would make archaeological history. When Carnarvon asked if he could see anything through the small hole poked through the plastered door, Carter was said to have replied, “Wonderful things.”

A prominent American Egyptologist, James Henry Breasted, who visited Tut's newly opened tomb, admits that he was “utterly dazed by the overwhelming spectacle…. The gorgeousness of the sight, the sumptuous splendor of it all, made it appear more like the confused magnificence of those counterfeit splendors which are heaped together in the property-room of some modern grand opera than any possible reality surviving from antiquity.”

During my own visit, I saw that what Carter had found choked with a remarkable assortment of royal grave finery were only four tiny rooms, their small size a sobering dose of reality to many who visit the tomb for the first time. Since I had already personally viewed the magnificent assortment of artifacts retrieved
from the tomb spread out over large halls in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, it boggled my mind to think of this minuscule space housing them all. Off to the right of the room, a railed fence kept tourists back from the sunken burial chamber in which a golden coffin, the outermost of Tut's nesting three, could be seen under a pane of glass. I have no idea how long I gazed at this token remainder of a dismantled royal burial. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but the pathetically damaged mummy of the young pharaoh remained hidden from view inside that very coffin as I looked on, stripped of its jewelry and other burial accoutrements by well-meaning archaeologists in the name of science. The naked remains lay in a tray of sand, a severed head and limbs placed in their proper anatomical position, as if to soothe the embarrassment of the mummy's exuberant investigators.

The rest of the afternoon was spent investigating some of the larger tombs in the valley accessible to tourists, empty royal tombs with painted, carved walls that dazzle the imagination and confound the uninitiated with their esoteric symbolism. As closing time neared, I mounted my bike for the exhilarating brakeless ride down the valley road to the fertile river plain.

I returned to the valley a couple of years later, with a map in hand showing dots here and there accompanied by tomb numbers. My goal during this second visit was to see as many of the tombs as possible—if not to enter their interiors, then at least to locate their exteriors. After noting the obviously visible tombs with their wide, gated doors, I spun my map about in confusion, wondering where many of the others might lie. To my surprise, about half of the tombs were identifiable only by little shafts or holes, while others could not be seen at all.

I went yet again to the valley the following year, this time well equipped with a comprehensive knowledge of the area as a whole.
My preparation had been a magnificent research volume titled
The Royal Necropoleis of Thebes,
written by an Egyptologist named Elizabeth Thomas in 1966. The book had never been formally published, but its single-spaced typewritten pages had been printed and assembled into a mere ninety copies to be found in scattered libraries. Thomas had collected nearly every known tidbit of information on the valley and other royal cemeteries in the region. There was very little that she missed, and her footnotes contain many references to archival notes by explorers and archaeologists. Something of interest can be found on every page, and I was struck not only by what was known but by what was not. Each tomb had something special and fascinating about it, and I discovered details of the obscure tombs that had piqued my interest from my previous tour of the valley. In the old days of Egyptian archaeology, finding a tomb or more a day might be de rigueur, and a robber-ravaged burial with nothing of artistic value was hardly worth a yawn. Yet the very existence of these many unpainted tombs speaks of their significance.