They have lain undisturbed in their pitch black resting place 16ft underground for more than three millennia. The five mummies in wooden sacrcophagi and coloured funeral masks from the 18th pharaonic dynasty were found in the first tomb to be unearthed in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since that of King Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922.Entombed around them in the underground chamber measuring 13ft by 17ft are 20 sealed clay jars probably containing food and wine.Yesterday journalists were allowed a first peek around a partially opened door at the scene, frozen in time for around 3,000 years.Remarkably the first discovery of a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor for 84 years was made by accident at the end of last year while American archaeologists were investigating the previously known tomb of 19th-dynasty pharaoh King Amenmesses.Beneath workmen's huts from this tomb they found a deep pit leading to a narrow shaft which in turn led to the stone doorway.

The door was partially opened last week to reveal the simple burial place believed to be from the first dynasty of the New Kingdom which ruled between 1539BC and 1292BC and had its capital in Thebes, the present city of Luxor.One of the coffins has toppled towards the door showing its white painted face while another is partially open, showing a brown cloth covering the mummy inside.The tomb, the 63rd discovered since the valley was first mapped in the 18th century, was found just yards from that of Tutankhamun, the boy king who became the best known of ancient Egypt's pharaohs despite dying in his teens, and whose resting place was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in November 1922.

View: Full Article | Source: Telegraph

So exciting! It's such good news to be finding more tombs, gives hope that there's more mysteries waiting discovering beneath the sands. What treasures there still may be!

It's fascinating to see history in the making. Even more fascinating when discoveries are products of accidents.

Sometimes untouched should be left untouched.
But revealing buried mysteries is an expansion for our known knowledge too...
So i think, they can observe or test it, but without disturbing it.

I'm dying to know who's buried there. Personally, I'm hoping for Hatshepsut. (I wrote an article about her last year, so I feel a bit proprietorial. *G*) One article I read about this suggests that this may be another cache, where 21st Dynasty priests hid 18th Dynasty mummies to protect them from tomb robbers. If so, we might get Hatshepsut and Nefertiti both. (Not that I'm greedy or anything . . . )