Archaeologists Discovered the First Royal Egyptian Tomb Since King Tut's Over 100 Years Ago

Yahoo

21-02-2025

For the first time in over a century, a royal Egyptian tomb has been uncovered by archaeologists.
The tomb was uncovered in 2022, but has only now been confirmed as the final resting place of King Thutmose II.
The facts of King Thutmose II's life are disputed, with different sources providing different lengths for his reign, and even applying other names to the late pharoah.
Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb kicked off a revived interest in Ancient Egypt that could well be described as 'Mummy Mania.' It launched the name of a previously somewhat lesser pharaoh into the Western vernacular, inspired scholarly studies, and sparked fantastical horror stories of 'mummy's curses.' Fifty full years after King Tut's tomb was discovered, the fascination was still so strong that comedian Steve Martin was able to perform a satirical song about the obsession on the third season of Saturday Night Live, and it became a legitimate hit on the Billboard charts.
Well, just in time for SNL's 50th season, Mr. Martin might need to tune up his famous banjo to write another song, because more than 100 years after Howard Carter's excavation, there is finally a new royal mummy's tomb in town.
As reported by CBS News, Egyptian officials announced on Tuesday that the tomb of King Thutmose II had been uncovered during a Egyptian-British archaeological mission. Though the confirmation is new this week, the entrance to this particular tomb had actually been uncovered in 2022—exactly 100 years since the last time a royal tomb had been discovered, that of King Tut.
When the tomb—which was initially simply called No. C4—was first discovered, 'the team believed it could belong to one of the wives of the kings,' according to Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. That assessment was based on the tomb's proximity to those of the wives of King Thutmose III, who was the son of Thutmose II and his second wife Iset.
But, as they excavated further, they discovered fragments of alabaster vessels inscribed with the name King Thutmose II and identifying him as a 'deceased king.' They also bore the name of Queen Hatshepsut, Thutmose II's wife and half-sister, who would have carried out the burial rituals. After careful analysis, officials finally confirmed the discovery in 2025.
Also found within the tomb mortar was a funerary text 'with remnants of blue inscriptions and yellow stars, and some paragraphs from the book of 'Imydwat,'' intended to provide guidance for entering the afterlife.
What wasn't found in the tomb, however, was the body of King Thutmose II himself. It was found in 1881, within a site officially known as TT320—or, colloquially, as the Royal Cache—in Deir el-Bahari, opposite Luxor in Egypt. The mummy was unwrapped by Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, who noticed the resemblance to Thutmose I (his father) and identified the remains as Thutmose II on July 1, 1886. The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization posits that Thutmose II's body had been relocated to this cache after his original tomb was looted by treasure seekers.
Comparatively little is known about the reign of King Thutmose II. In fact, even the length of his time as king is disputed. Some sources suggest he reigned for 13 years (from 1493 until his death in 1479 B.C.), while others suggest it was as short as three years (beginning in 1482). In the Aegyptiaca, a third-century Greek language history of Egypt, the author—an Egyptian priest known as Manetho—throws another potential wrench into our understanding by stating that after Thutmose I's death, 'he was succeeded by his son Chebron, who ruled for 13 years.' This alternative name could be a Greek version of the royal name (known as a prenomen) of Aakheperenre, a name Thutmose II could have bore.
This lack of clarity from our written histories is part of what makes this discovery so exciting. Beyond the inherently remarkable fact that a new tomb has finally been discovered for the first time in over 100 years, the fact that it's this particular pharaoh's tomb means that the possibility of finally gaining some concrete answers to his long-disputed history has finally presented itself.
The tomb, the experts note note, 'is in a poor state of preservation due largely to exposure to floods shortly after Thutmose II's death,' and much of the tomb's original contents were likely relocated after said floods. That said, the team very much intends to continue their survey work to see what new information can be gleaned.
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