Archaeologists uncover an ancient Egyptian tomb belonging to a mystery king
Archaeologists uncover an ancient Egyptian tomb belonging to a mystery king
Blog Article
A newly uncovered ancient Egyptian tomb is shedding light on royalty that once ruled the region over 3,600 years ago.
Archaeologists discovered the massive limestone burial chamber, which has multiple rooms and a decorated entryway, in January in Abydos, Egypt. But the lavish tomb’s intended occupant remains a mystery. Graverobbers had damaged the hieroglyphic text painted on bricks at the entryway, leaving the name unreadable, according to a news release issued March 27 by the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania.
The impressive tomb didn’t contain skeletal remains that could help identify its owner. However, the researchers who made the discovery believe it is likely the resting place of a king who ruled upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period between 1640 and 1540 BC as part of the Abydos Dynasty, one of the least understood dynasties of ancient Egypt. The mystery king might be one of several who are notoriously missing from the traditional records of monarchs who once ruled the region.
“It’s a very sort of mysterious, enigmatic dynasty that seems to have basically been sort of forgotten from the ancient records of Egypt, because it was in this period of political decay and fragmentation,” said Josef Wegner, an Egyptologist and professor of Egyptian archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the excavation. “This mystery tomb … opens a new kind of avenue of investigation (into the Abydos Dynasty).”
The burial chamber is the largest to be discovered from any known ruler from the same dynasty, illuminating a previously misunderstood period of history that can only be revealed through material remains, experts say.
The lost pharaoh
Archaeologists found the tomb nearly 23 feet (about 7 meters) underground at the site of an ancient necropolis, or “city of the dead.” The necropolis is situated at Abydos’ Anubis Mountain, a natural pyramid-shaped formation that was considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians and served to conceal the tombs built beneath it.
In historical records, Abydos was referred to as a sacred city that was the final resting place of Osiris — the god of the underworld — and the preferred resting place for the first pharaohs. The necropolis developed over the course of centuries as more dynasties built tombs and buried their kings within the royal cemetery.
Over a decade ago, Wegner and his team came across the first tomb within this necropolis that confirmed the existence of the Abydos Dynasty, a ruling lineage that had been first hypothesized about in 1997 by Egyptologist Kim Ryholt. Ryholt believed the smaller dynasty would have ruled the region of Abydos during a time when ancient Egypt was broken into rival kingdoms.
That first tomb’s owner, King Seneb-Kay, was an entirely unknown pharaoh who was never mentioned in historical records. Of the eight tombs from the dynasty discovered thus far, Seneb-Kay’s is the only one found with a name preserved in the burial kra15 at chamber.