Archeologists Discover First Pharaoh’s Tomb in Egypt Since King Tut’s Was Found More Than a Century Ago

A British-Egyptian team of archeologists has discovered the first pharaoh’s tomb since King Tutankhamun’s was found more than 100 years ago in 1922.

The team found the nearly 3,500-year-old tomb — now known to have belonged to King Thutmose II — in the Western Valleys of the Theban Necropolis near the city of Luxor in Egypt, per the BBC. British archaeologist Dr. Piers Litherland, who had been working in the area for more than a decade, said they first discovered a staircase and descending corridor that led to the tomb.

While the team spent months clearing flood debris from the corridor, they assumed the tomb belonged to a royal wife. However, when Litherland finally got into the burial chamber, he saw that its ceiling was painted blue with yellow stars and decorated with scenes from the Amduat, a religious text reserved exclusively for kings. That’s when the tremendous significance of his discovery set in.

He recalled the overwhelming experience in an interview on the BBC’s Newshour, saying, “The emotion of getting into these things is just one of extraordinary bewilderment because when you come across something you’re not expecting to find, it’s emotionally extremely turbulent, really.”

“And when I came out, my wife was waiting outside, and the only thing I could do was burst into tears,” Litherland added.

Thutmose II was an ancestor of King Tut who reigned from 1493 to 1479 BC. He was married to Queen Hatshepsut, one of the few women to rule in her own right, and the father of King Thutmose III. His mummified remains were found two centuries ago, but not his burial site, per the BBC.

When the archeology team got to work clearing the flood debris and collapsed ceilings that were blocking the chamber, they had expected to find the crushed remains of a burial. Instead, Litherland told the outlet, the tomb was “completely empty.”

“Not because it was robbed, but because it had been deliberately emptied,” he said.

The team then determined that the tomb had been built beneath a waterfall and flooded about six years after the king’s burial. The remains were moved to another location at the time.

In the tomb, researchers sifted through tons of broken limestone and found fragments of alabaster jars, which were inscribed with the names of Thutmose II and Hatshepsut.

Litherland told the BBC the alabaster fragments likely broke “when the tomb was being moved.”

“And thank goodness they actually did break one or two things because that’s how we found out whose tomb it was,” he said.

Litherland and his team have an idea of where the second tomb is and believe it could still be intact with artifacts, per the BBC.

“The possible existence of a second, and most likely intact, tomb of Thutmose II is an astonishing possibility,” Mohsen Kamel, assistant field director, said, according to The Guardian.

Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, Sherif Fathy, described the discovery of Thutmose II’s original tomb as “an extraordinary moment for Egyptology and the broader understanding of our shared human story,” per the BBC.