Beneath the Sands of Egypt Read Free Page A

Museum’s inventory catalog, the Journal d’Entrée, which records the acquisition of a coffin with a mummy, “recognized by Carter as having been found by him near Menthuherkhepeshef in 1903. It was brought away later by (Ayrton?).” No mention was made of the second mummy in the tomb, found lying on its floor. Might it and other burial remnants still remain within? Sometime, perhaps immediately, after this second modern visit to the tomb, KV 60 became once again buried and its specific location lost, destined to remain obscure for another eighty years.
    As Carter noted, the mummy in Cairo retrieved by Ayrton was initially identified by hieroglyphs on the coffin in which she lay, yet later research revealed that she was not the nurse of pharaoh Thutmose IV but rather served that role for Hatshepsut, the controversial woman who ruled over Egypt for about twenty years. Her name was Sitre (Daughter of the god Re), and her nickname was “In” (Fish). A shattered statue of this woman was discovered at the site of Hatshepsut’s temple, on the other side of the cliffs from the valley, and depicts her seated with the young queen/pharaoh-to-be seated on her lap. The location of Tomb 60 would perhaps seem to make sense, then, because the closest royal tomb of the appropriate date was indeed that of Hatshepsut nearby.
    Out of respect for Elizabeth Thomas, I added KV 60 to my list of requests to be submitted for approval to the Egyptian antiquities authorities. If the situation presented itself sometime during the next few years, perhaps I would spend a moment contemplating the location of this long-missing tomb. The scenario as it played out, however, would be quite different.
    It was late June 1989 when we arrived in Luxor to begin our work on the valley’s undecorated tombs, and the intense summer heat had already arrived a couple of months before. We spent a day getting established, negotiating a reasonable long-term rate with our hotel manager, and rounding up the supplies we would need to begin work. I was accompanied by one of my former professors, Mark Papworth, a brilliant thinker and the unsung co-instigator of a major theoretical revolution that swept through American archaeology in the 1960s and ’70s. We were also joined by Hisham Hegazy, an inspector with the Antiquities Service who worked as a freelance archaeologist from time to time. I had met him the year before, while spending a few weeks on an excavation in the Nile Delta directed by another former professor. Handsome, charming, and with a reasonably good command of the English language, Hisham was a wonderful asset with his knowledge of local archaeology and the system that governs it.
    The morning of June 26 had been spent making sure all was in order with the local authorities, and by the time that had been dealt with, the solar inferno was in full effect. We set off to the valley that day to orient ourselves to our work site and drop off a few brooms, hoes, and buckets. The ride up the valley was especially searing, even with the windows of our rented car wide open. Our driver pulled up as close to the entrance as possible, the souvenir dealers having already locked up their little trinket kiosks and disappeared for the day. It was exciting to be in the valley on official business, not merely as a tourist. We rounded the corner by the old rest house, heading toward the valley’s eastern cliff, passing the remarkable tombs of Rameses I and Seti I. The well-maintained path soon ended as we walked a bit farther up a small path to the only visible shade at the entranceway of Tomb 19, the beautifully painted corridor tomb of Prince Montuhirkhopeshef. We putthe tools down in a heap. “We’re here, let’s take a look around,” I offered, and we took a little stroll down the small wadi that contained the tombs in our concession: KV 21, 27, 28, 44, 45, and, lost somewhere in the area, 60.
    The environment was