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Intact tomb found in Egypt's Valley of Kings
First such discovery in the area since Tutankhamun’s in 1922

Associated Press
Updated: 5:47 p.m. ET Feb. 9, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt - The first tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut’s in 1922 contains five sarcophagi with mummies, breaking the nearly centurylong belief that there’s nothing more to find in the valley where some of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs were buried.

The tomb’s spare appearance suggests it was not dug for a pharaoh, said U.S. archaeologist Kent Weeks, who was not involved in the University of Memphis team’s find but has seen photographs of the site. “It could be the tomb of a king’s wife or son, or of a priest or court official,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Egypt’s antiquities authority has said only that the single-chamber tomb contains five wooden sarcophagi, in human shapes with colored funerary masks, surrounded by 20 jars with their pharaonic seals intact — and that the sarcophagi contain mummies, likely from the 18th Dynasty, some 3,500-3,300 years ago.

Weeks made the last major discovery in the valley. In 1995, he opened a previously known tomb — KV5 — and found it was far larger than expected: more than 120 chambers, which he determined were meant for sons of the pharaoh Ramses II.

“It’s ironic. A century ago, people said the Valley of the Kings is exhausted, there’s nothing left,” he said. “Suddenly Carter found Tutankhamun. So then they said, ‘Now there’s nothing to find.’ Then we found KV5. Now we have KV63.”

Full story at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11252094/