Egyptian Tombs :: World History Essays

Egyptian TombsEgyptologists had lost interest in the site of tomb 5, which hadbeen explored and looted decades ago. Therefore, they wanted to give wayto a parking lot. However, no one would have ever known the treasure thatlay only 200 ft. from King Tuts resting rest home which was beyond a fewrubble strewn rooms that previous excavators had used to hold theirdebris.Dr. Kent Weeks, an Egyptologist with the American University inCairo, wanted to be sure the new parking facility wouldnt destroyanything important. Thus, Dr. weeks embarked in 1988 on one finalexploration of the old dumping ground. Eventually he was able to pry opena door blocked for thousands of years, and denote the discovery of alife time. We found ourselves in a corridor, he remembers. On each sidewere 10 doors and at end there was a statue of Osiris, the god of theafterlife.The tomb is mostly unexcavated and the chambers are choked withdebris, Weeks is convinced that there are more rooms on a lower level, deliveran ce the total number to more than 100. That would make tomb 5 thebiggest and most complex tomb ever found in Egypt, and quite conceivablethe resting place of up to 50 sons of Ramesses II, perhaps the best knownof all the pharaohs, the ruler believed to have been Moses nemesis inthe book of Exodus.The Valley of the Kings, in which Tomb 5 is located, is justacross the Nile River from Luxor, Egypt. It is never exactly been off thebeaten track. Tourism has been brisk in the valley for millenniumsgraffiti scrawled on tomb walls proves that Greek and roman print travelersstopped here to gaze at the wall paintings and hieroglyphics that werealready old long before the birth of Christ. Archaeologists have beencoming for centuries too. Napoleon brought his own team up of excavators whenhe invaded in 1798, and a series of expeditions in 19th and early 20thcenturies uncovered one tomb after another. A total of 61 burial spots hadbeen found by the time the British explorer Howard Carter opene d thetreasure-laden tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.Britains James Burton had burrowed into the site of Tomb 5 in1820, and decided that there was nothing inside. A dismissive Carter usedits entryway as a place to dump the debris he was truckage out of Tutstomb.In the late 1980s, came the proposed parking area and Weeksconcern. His 1988 foray made it clear that the tomb wasnt dull as Burtonsaid. Elaborate carvings covered walls and referred to Ramesses II, whose