A new ancient tomb believed to belong to a royal wife from Egypt’s 18th dynasty, which included Akhenaten and Tutankhamun nearly 3,500 years ago, was recently discovered in the city of Luxor, nicknamed the Thebes of the Pharaohs, Egyptian authorities said.

The royal tomb was discovered by Egyptian and British researchers on the west bank of the Nile, where the famous “Valley of the Kings” is located, and archaeological excavations are still ongoing, said Mostafa Waziri, director of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, in an interview.

But “the first elements discovered inside the tomb already seem to indicate that it dates back to the 18th dynasty,” which is considered the peak and most prosperous period of ancient Egypt, he added.

Piers Litherland, a professor at the University of Cambridge and co-ordinator of the British team of archaeologists involved in this mission, said that “the tomb is the tomb of a royal wife or princess from the hierarchical line of Tutmesian pharaohs, of which very little has been explored. excavated until now”.

The interior of the tomb is “in a poor state of preservation”, with “numerous structures and inscriptions destroyed by the floods of antiquity, which filled the burial chambers with sand and lime deposits”, added Egyptian archaeologist Mohsen Kamel, quoted in the same statement.

The authorities of Cairo promise the opening of the “Great Egyptian Museum” for several months

In recent months, Egypt has unveiled several major discoveries, mainly at the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo.

Egypt, a country of 104 million people facing a severe economic crisis, is counting on these announcements to revive its tourism, which has been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This sector, which employs 2 million Egyptians and generates more than 10% of the national GDP, has declined since the 2011 Arab Spring.

Cairo authorities have been promising for several months the quick opening of the “Great Egyptian Museum” built near the Giza Plateau, without yet announcing an exact opening date.

Many archaeologists predicted that the event will be organized in 2022, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion and the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

[Sursa: Agerpres / Foto articol: Meinzahn, Dreamstime.com]