NEW TOMB FOUND IN EGYPT!

Pharaonic tomb find stuns Egypt.

Inside the tomb

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.
The tomb, the 63rd discovered since the valley was first mapped in the 18th century, was unexpectedly found only five metres away from King Tutankhamun's, a member of the team told the BBC's World Tonight. Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, said the team had not been looking for it.

Click for map of Valley of the Kings

"The excavation team was focused on the tomb of a 19th Dynasty pharaoh, King Amenmesses," she said.

In pictures: Pharaonic tomb

"They were working in front of the tomb looking for foundation deposits possibly related to that tomb, and clearing away some workmen's huts from the 19th Dynasty that were both to the left and right side of the tomb," she explained. "Underneath these workmen's huts, they found a shaft." Four metres below the ground was a single chamber containing sarcophagi with coloured funerary masks and more than 20 large storage jars bearing Pharaonic seals. Kings? The sarcophagi were buried rapidly in the small tomb for an unknown reason. Ms Podzorski said the tomb was thought to date from the 18th Pharaonic Dynasty, the first dynasty of the New Kingdom which ruled between 1539BC and 1292BC and made its capital in Thebes, the present city of Luxor.
Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass told Reuters news agency the mummies "might be royals or nobles moved from their original graves to protect them from grave robbers". "We don't really know what kind of people are inside but I do believe they look royal. Maybe they are kings or queens or nobles," he said. 'Still wrong' The discovery has come as a surprise to many, Ms Podzorski said. "People have been saying the valley was done for 100 years," she said. "They said it before Howard Carter found King Tutankhamun's tomb and they said it after. But, obviously, they are still wrong."

BBC NEWS REPORT.