Pharaonic tomb find stuns Egypt (First find since Tutankhamun) | BBC

[Ediacara]

Pharaonic tomb find stuns Egypt

Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the first since King Tutankhamun's was found in 1922.

A team led by the University of Memphis found the previously unknown tomb complete with unopened sarcophagi and five undisturbed mummies.

The archaeologists have not yet been able to identify them.

The Valley of the Kings near Luxor in southern Egypt was used for burials for around 500 years from 1540BC onwards.

More at the BBC

[Hardrada]

1. Now lets bring democracy to Egypt

so that stuff can get stolen!

[kiraboo]

2. LOL! Now you're thinking! n/t

[MADem]

10. Oh, come on, Rummy will just say that the liberal media is showing

the same grave robber with the same Egyptian royal trinkets coming out of the tomb, over and over again!!! There's no LOOOOOOOTING!!! Really!!!!

[Lars39]

3. This is so neat!!!

:bounce:

[bleedingheart]

4. 18th dynasty....and hastily done...

wonder who the folks buried there could be...

[patcox2]

5. Sounds like a re-burial, from robbed tombs.

That could be interesting. Are you familiar of the story of how they found the majority of the pharoh's mummies? At some point way back in the middle kingdom, the priests had gathered about 15 or so royal mummies whose tombs had all been robbed and put them in one cave high on a cliff. They were not discovered until the late 1800s when nearby villagers found the cave and lived for several years by selling the antiquities, attracting enough attention to alert egyptologists to the find. Thats where they found Ramses and bunches of others.

[bleedingheart]

7. yup....these could be reburials...

Nefertiti, Queen Tiye...Akhenaten even...perhaps... if they are royals....

the entire Amarna period was rife with scandal...could be anyone...hell even Tiye's daughters with Amenhotep...

or it could be low level officials given the honor of a burial in the valley...

[lagavulin]

9. Oh that makes sense...

The ancient Egyptians worshipped the DEAD, and modern people worship MONEY. So by selling the dead for money, we're really just paying our respects in our own special way...

Right...?

[aquart]

20. Seen Nefertiti lately?

There's a mummy grail.

[Quakerfriend]

6. This is so amazing!

This warms my heart, sort of like the news last week of the discovery of new species.

[DRoseDARs]

8. So THAT'S where Cheney's "undisclosed location" is...

Fancies himself a pharaoh. Figures.

[Psephos]

11. Mummies are cool, but opening graves to get them seems a sacrilege

I've often thought about this.

It would be considered an atrocity to go dig up someone's grandmother who died in 1969. Maybe even a grave from 1869. But 1969 BC is no problem. How many years must pass before we stop thinking of a grave as sacrosanct and instead start thinking of it as buried treasure?

I don't have the answer, only the question.

Peace.

[LisaM]

13. Some people feel the same about shipwrecks

but I think that they are like textbooks - full of so much useful information we can all learn from. I don't plan on being shipwrecked, but I HAVE often thought that if I had perished on the Titanic, I would want everything pulled up and examined in the interest of history, information, a link to the past, etc.

[bleedingheart]

16. interestingly enough...

most of the tombs were robbed not long after they were sealed and they were buried treasure...while the royals and those with enough money thought it was okay to bury wealth with them, the commoners had to eat...

[aquart]

19. What becomes of their immortality if they are lost and unknown?

A grandmother buried in 1969 still has living memories of her in her grandchildren. She is not lost. She is not forgotten. There is no need to dig.

By contrast, in opening this tomb, forgotten lives are joined to ours, and we remember them as part of us.

How is that a sacrilege?

[Psephos]

21. Excellent observation n/t

[KittyWampus]

22. Brilliant Observation! It's as if opening the Pharoah's tombs brings them

back to life.

Who knows, perhaps the Universe in its infinite Wisdom had the ancients practice elaborate burials specifically for this purpose. So we can get a glimps into our collective past.

Like a bee thinks its collecting nectar for its own benefit but is really pollinating the flowers...

[Pithy Cherub]

12. What an incredible find.

Hopefully there is some preserved text giving further illumination to what current events were happening. It may be Queen Nefetiri's grave and her children. She was King Tutankhamen's aunt. The ancient Egyptians wiped everything they could off the map from Pharoah's Ikhnaton reign.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. If our spirits roam the earth after passing...

I'll bet Khephra's is there right now...

[Lars39]

15. I was looking at my Old DU bookmarks this morning.

I had so many that he started. It just hasn't been the same without Kephra and nostjam and Andy. :(

[GoddessOfGuinness]

17. I feel like they're still here in a way...

because what we post affects the way other people post. There's a little of them in each of us. :hug:

[Peace Patriot]

18. There were ancient scrolls wrapped around these mummies, which,

when the mysterious hieroglyphics were translated, said, "Bush is a dope. Wake up, people! Transparent elections are the only way!"

Things like that.