Officials in Egypt say they have unearthed the resting place of King Thutmose II, marking what the government described as the very first major discovery since the tomb of King Tutankhamun was found in 1922.
Egyptian archaeologists, alongside British experts, discovered the latest ancient tomb in the mount of Thebes area, west of Luxor and the renowned Valley of the Kings, officials said on Tuesday.
Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said the approximately 3,500-year-old tomb is one of the most significant finds in Egypt in decades.
“This is the first time funerary furniture belonging to Thutmose II has been discovered, as no such items exist in museums worldwide,” he was quoted by Egypt’s State Information Service as saying.
Khaled said when archaeologists first found the entrance to the tomb and its main passage almost three years ago, the team believed it could belong to one of the wives of the kings, given its proximity to the tomb of the wives of King Thutmose III and to the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have reigned as a pharaoh in Egypt.
Adding to the difficulty in determining the burial ground’s ownership was its poor condition due to exposure to flooding, according to Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian team that worked on the dig.
But artefacts discovered inside the tomb, including fragments of alabaster jars, bore inscriptions with the names of Thutmose II and his principal wife, Queen Hatshepsut, providing definitive evidence of the tomb’s ownership.
Experts also have determined that Queen Hatshepsut, the king’s wife and at the same time his half-sister, oversaw Thutmose II’s burial.
Egyptian authorities said the artefacts discovered are important additions to the body of knowledge around the history of the area and the reign of Thutmose II.
The excavation, which began in 2022, has been conducted in collaboration with experts from the New Kingdom Research Foundation in the UK.
The mummy of King Thutmose II itself was discovered during the 19th century, not far away at another archaeological site known as the Deir el-Bahari Cachette. It was likely moved there, centuries after being looted by tomb raiders, according to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.
His mummy is now on display, among those of other ancient royals, at the museum.
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