Ancient Near East .net

The clutch of new discoveries at Karnak and on the West Bank of Luxor were somewhat overshadowed late this week with the official announcement, yesterday, of the discovery of a new tomb (KV 63) in the Valley of the Kings. Although several funerary caches and workers’ buildings have been revealed over recent decades, the somewhat unexpected find marks the first actual burial uncovered in the Valley since Howard Carter’s uncovering of the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62) in 1922.

Interior view of tomb KV 63 (Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images - non-exclusive access to tomb supplied by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. Claim: Fair Use)

The last fortnight has witnessed a number of exciting archaeological discoveries in Luxor, the ancient Egyptian politico-religious capital of Upper Egypt.

At the end of January came news of twin discoveries from the remains of the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III at Kom el-Hetan, adjacent to the so-called Colossi of Memnon: a statue of the lion goddess Sakhmet and a rare statue of a king with Nubian features.

Shortly thereafter, on February 1, the John Hopkins University team excavating the compound of the Temple of Mut at Karnak announced the end of another highly successful excavation season for 2006. Easily the most spectacular single find was a sublime statue of a royal female, revealed to the excavators on January 19, though not publicised until January 22.

The focus of new discoveries swung back across the Nile on February 7 with the announcement of the discovery of a colossal head of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III within his mortuary temple compound at Kom el-Hetan.