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The search for Ankhsenamun


Kenemet

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The tomb of King Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun may soon be discovered. Archaeologists have reportedly begun excavations in an area of the Valley of the Kings, which is suspected to be the location of the Ankhesenamun's final resting place.

Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who formerly served as the minister of state for antiquities affairs, announced on his website that the search for Ankhesenamun's tomb has begun with new excavations at the West Valley, also known as the Valley of the Monkeys. The tomb is believed to be located close the tomb of King Tutankhamun's successor, the Egyptian pharaoh Ay.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ancient-egypt-archaeologists-now-searching-tomb-king-tutankhamuns-wife-ankhesenamun-1655540

Clues to the location of the tomb came with the discovery of four foundation caches in the arm of the Valley of Kings known as the "Valley of the Monkeys" (or Valley of the Baboons, after images found there.)

A very... breathless... version of this news story appears in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5279643/Has-Tutankhamuns-tragic-teenage-wife-finally-found.html

 

And yes, Hawass legitimately has a firman to dig there.  The Egyptian government gives preferences on firmans to teams headed by or associated with Egyptian archaeologists and professionals... and frankly, I think that's as it should be.  

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It would be interesting to know the manner of her demise if it can be determined, and if she got much older. If they actually locate her that is. Another of those extreme cold cases.  

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  • 2 months later...

https://www.livescience.com/62264-search-king-tut-wife-tomb.html

The area is called the Valley of the Monkeys, a cadet branch of the Valley of the Kings wadi.  This find may be pivotal to the understanding of the post-Amarna period, and of the royal succession during the age of Amarna and its aftermath.  And Zahi seems to be back in stride.

 

 

 

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Zahi is just gonna go buy his self a new hat is all ...

~

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He doesn't need to buy one...he sells them, under his brand.  He should sell survival kits under his brand too...after all, it's what he does best.  ^_^ 

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I don't trust anything that guy does or says.

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9 minutes ago, The Wistman said:

He doesn't need to buy one...he sells them, under his brand.  He should sell survival kits under his brand too...after all, it's what he does best.  ^_^ 

That's the point, with all this new high tech scanning and non intrusive imaging equipment made available today, it won't be long before Zahi will be up to his nose and more with 'new' discoveries, and the kind of stink that seems to be wedded to his calamities ... best he just buys his self a hat

:lol:

~

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YAY the Media Tart* is back!!

 

 

 

 

 

*what we used to call him because he was in literally every documentary on Egypt. 

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 What's with the vitriol? Yes, the man was a media whore, but that doesn't take away from his expertise in Egyptology and archaeology. Whether you want to admit it or not, the guy knows what he is talking about and is world renowned as a researcher and excavator. He is now involved in a very important excavation and I, for one, am interested in his findings. 

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2 hours ago, Gaden said:

 What's with the vitriol? Yes, the man was a media whore, but that doesn't take away from his expertise in Egyptology and archaeology. Whether you want to admit it or not, the guy knows what he is talking about and is world renowned as a researcher and excavator. He is now involved in a very important excavation and I, for one, am interested in his findings. 

Dude, I’m Australian, we call each other “C....” lovingly. Just because we call him a media tart doesn’t mean we don’t not listen when he speaks.

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10 hours ago, Gaden said:

 What's with the vitriol? Yes, the man was a media whore, but that doesn't take away from his expertise in Egyptology and archaeology. Whether you want to admit it or not, the guy knows what he is talking about and is world renowned as a researcher and excavator. He is now involved in a very important excavation and I, for one, am interested in his findings. 

Hawass is not without legitimate criticism but mostly he's just a big bogeyman they can blame for not finding the true(TM) history of Egypt. 

 

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3 hours ago, ShadowSot said:

Hawass is not without legitimate criticism but mostly he's just a big bogeyman they can blame for not finding the true(TM) history of Egypt. 

 

 Which, it would seem, are many and various.

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I dont understand why the name of area where Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun is called Valley of the Monkeys? why monkeys?

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3 hours ago, MissJatti said:

I don't understand why the name of area where Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun is called Valley of the Monkeys? why monkeys?

The tomb of Ay is located in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes) near the new rest house. This area is known as the West Valley, but is sometimes also called Wadi el-Gurud (Valley of the Monkeys or Baboons), because of a scene in this tomb depicting the twelve Baboon, very similar to a scene in the Tomb of Tutankhamun. In fact, this tomb may have originally been intended for Tutankhamun, but he died unexpectedly early so another, private tomb was quickly enlarged for his burial.It is very possible that both the tomb of Tutankhamun and this one were decorated by the same artists.

Source: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ayt.htm

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It now seems that, besides alluding to Ankhesenamun's tomb, he's indicating there are more tombs there...but he's not saying anything specific you see...you have to watch the Discovery documentary!!!   :huh:

Like him or not, he's found something and it seems to be more than one something.   It's what a diva archaeologist lives for.   I must say I'm happier with him in the field and swanning on the TV over it, rather than as a Minister with power over other digs etc. 

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I've been following this story on and off for a while now, but one thing I've had trouble with is more detailed information on the foundation deposits. Do any of them mention Ankhesenamun by name?

Hawass has a penchant for trying to attach glory to every new discovery. I don't think he's being dishonest but just gets excited by a new discovery (usually a good thing, if one controls it).

Remember Otto Schaden and KV63? Hawass was convinced that this was the tomb of Tut's mother, and even went so far to proclaim on that Discovery Channel special that it was the tomb of Kiya. His reasoning was more or less that Tut in KV62 wanted his mother to be nearby. Really. And KV63 turned out to be an embalmers cache.

I'm paying attention, but one must always be prepared to receive something much less grandiose than advertised.

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14 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

I've been following this story on and off for a while now, but one thing I've had trouble with is more detailed information on the foundation deposits. Do any of them mention Ankhesenamun by name?

 

There's a partial name on one of the objects, if memory serves.

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From a March 2016 article:

5ad8fb6df134d_depositsvalleyofthemonkeys.jpg.b14152ae006cc76dd7afc42f69316d05.jpg

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Just last year, archaeologists were excavating areas around Egypt’s Valley of the Kings; what they found is a miraculous addition to Egyptian artifacts. They found four deposits that were buried in a ritual act that used to be carried out right before the construction of a tomb.

The deposits were arranged in a box-like shape and had a mix of different artifacts. The items included the head of a cow, a vase that was painted blue, and flint blades with wooden handles. The most amazing thing is that every one of those artifacts, including the cow head, were almost perfectly preserved even after three millennia.

artifacts-valley-of-kings.jpg.ba05cb3ef0dae2d6dd4fa49e11fad4c1.jpg

http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/01/mysterious-artifacts-found-in-the-valley-of-kings-in-egypt/

And we should note this from Jan 2018 LiveScience:

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Excavations, which are being funded by the Discovery Channel, have just started, according to a statement on Hawass' website. Several photos of the excavation are shown on Hawass' website, and the statement said that more photos of the ongoing excavations will be posted soon.  

https://www.livescience.com/61441-search-for-king-tut-wife.html

But then there's also this, from Jan 2018 El Ahram:

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Renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass told Ahram Online that in 2010 the team has unearthed inside these deposits a collection of knives and clay pots from the reign of king Amenhotep III, the father of the monotheistic king Akhenatun and the grandfather of the golden king Tutankhamun.

“This suggests that the tomb could belong to one of Tutankhamun’s family members, probably his wife Ankhesenamun,” Hawass told Ahram Online.

He added that radar survey carried out earlier has detected the existence of an anomaly five meters below the ground level. Some suggest that it could be the entrance of a tomb.

"Until excavations were conducted, archaeologists couldn't be certain of the tomb's existence. And if so we do not know for sure to whom it belongs," Hawass said, adding that "it could be anything, until we excavate."

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/288380/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Searching-for-the-tomb-of-Tutankhamuns-wife-Ankhes.aspx

So it seems from what I've read that the radar imaging and the discovery of the foundation deposits occurred back in 2010.  Perhaps the site yielded the other artifacts in 2015.  The linking of the site to Ankhesenamun and her family is speculation by Hawass's team based on the location.

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Edited by The Wistman
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They better keep their hands off a her ...

~

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As a follow-on to my post #18 above, I've found another LiveScience article (this one from 2014) on the discovery and original work done at the site, dating from the time that the original team (Afifi Ghonim and Glen Dash) reported their findings to the Current Research in Egyptology conference in London. 

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Ghonim, an archaeologist with the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, was field supervisor of the Egyptian expedition to the valley that took place between 2007 and 2011, and Dash led a team that did ground-penetrating radar work. This expedition, led by Zahi Hawass, was the largest since Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. It has resulted in numerous discoveries and the collection of data, which will take many years to fully analyze and publish.

https://www.livescience.com/45271-artifacts-discovered-in-egypt-valley-of-the-kings.html

The artifacts, as of the date of this article in 2014, had not yet yielded their link to Amenhotep III, which we read in the 2016 article from VintageNews, linked previous post.  Now we can say that all of the artifacts described in my previous post were found in the original expedition sometime @2010, the date Zahi mentioned to El Ahram in January of this year (linked at #18.) 

Sorry to harp on all of this, but a confusing record has been laid in the media as to when these things were discovered and what was new to trigger the sequence of updates and news reports in the years following.  Other than the attribution on some of the artifacts to Amenhotep III, succeeding reports insinuate that the finds of artifacts (even the use of radar at the site) was an urgent, recent development, and then repeatedly justify the speculation relative to Ankhesenamun and the pressing need to inform the world (again) so to speak.  We are told that excavations are about to begin, then we are told the same thing six months or even a couple years later.  Additionally, it seems to me that (not discounting the political upheavals in Egypt during these years) that Hawass is massaging this dig to conform with the deals he has set up with the Discovery channel and the rebuilding of his public image after it was damaged by his dismissal as Minister after the revolution in Egypt. 

Hawass better have something significant to show us...the dig has got that slippery feeling to me now.  Hope I'm wrong.

giphy.gif

Edited by The Wistman
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