Archaeology Magazine interviews Roxanne Wilson.

A month has passed since the announcement was made by Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, that an American team — a University of Memphis Mission directed by Otto Schaden — had found a sealed burial chamber less than 50 feet from the tomb of Tutankhamun. The first accounts had conflicting information, but we know now that the tomb holds seven coffins, believed to be of late 18th Dynasty date, and 28 clay jars. ARCHAEOLOGY spoke with Roxanne Wilson, an artist and recorder with the excavations, about how the discovery was made and the latest news about the tomb...

ARCHAEOLOGY: It must have been nerve wracking to think you might have found a new tomb, the first more than 80 years, and then have to postpone excavating it until the next season.

WILSON: Indeed it was, for the team was sworn to secrecy for the whole year. The suspense on whether we did find a new tomb or just a "foxhole" was definitely stressful...

KV 63: A Look at the New Tomb, Archaeology Magazine, New York, USA, March 06, 2006.

Or not as it turns out! There was no discovery! It was just an Italian journalist looking for a scoop and adding 2 + 2 to get 5.

See the following two pages on Francesco Tiradritti's official Harwa excavation website.

How to discover an already discovered tomb

In the last days I received congratulations from friends and acquaintances for the discovery of an unknown tomb. At first I was astonished, then I found out what they were referring to...

Harwa News: Page 1, Italian Archaeological Mission in Luxor, Francesco Tiradritti, Italy, March 03, 2006.

Harwa News: Page 2, Italian Archaeological Mission in Luxor, Francesco Tiradritti, Italy, March 03, 2006.

cf. My previous post: New tomb discovered near Deir el Bahari.

Thanks to Jane Akshar for bringing this to my attention.

Researchers from Boston University Centre for Remote Sensing have discovered the remnants of the largest crater of the Great Sahara of North Africa, which may have been formed by a meteorite impact tens of millions of years ago. Dr. Farouk El-Baz made the discovery while studying satellite images of the Western Desert of Egypt with his colleague, Dr. Eman Ghoneim, at BU's Centre for Remote Sensing.

The double-ringed crater — which has an outer rim surrounding an inner ring — is approximately 31 kilometres in diameter. Prior to the latest finding, the Sahara's biggest known crater, in Chad, measured just over 12 kilometres. According to El-Baz, the Centre's director, the crater's vast area suggests the location may have been hit by a meteorite the entire size of the famous Meteor (Barringer) Crater in Arizona which is 1.2 kilometres wide.

El-Baz named his find "Kebira," which means "large" in Arabic and also relates to the crater's physical location on the northern tip of the Gilf Kebir region in southwestern Egypt...

Largest Crater in the Great Sahara Discovered by Boston University Scientists, SpaceRef Interactive Inc., Virginia, USA, March 05, 2006.

cf. LARGEST CRATER IN THE GREAT SAHARA DISCOVERED BY BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCIENTISTS, Boston University Centre for Remote Sensing, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA, March 03, 2006.

Ancient, stranded, ghazya, Sanusi, art. Five seemingly unrelated words that always jump to mind whenever I think about Farafra. And yet Farafra, ever elusive and mysterious, embodies all five.

Five major oases dot the Western Desert of Egypt: Siwa, Bahariya, Dakhla [or Dakhleh], Kharga and Farafra, with Farafra being one of the oldest. The first appearance of the oasis in history books can be traced to the ancient scripts of the Fifth Dynasty, which referred to Farafra as “Ta-iht” (Land of the Cow) after the goddess Hathor. It also received a mention in the classic Pharaonic work The Eloquent Peasant and featured as the third oasis in the primordial text of The Seven Oases in the Temple of Edfu.

Despite the references, no major monuments were ever found in Farafra, save a handful of brick ruins that date back to the Roman period and a couple of small, undecorated rock-cut tombs.

Stranded in the middle of the Western Desert, Farafra was barely accessible, and, as such, went unnoticed for complete periods throughout history. A reference emerges after the Byzantine period when it was Christianized and, like Siwa and Kharga, became a place of banishment. Years later, Al-Yaqubi mentioned it in his ninth century Kitab Al-Buldan (Book of Countries). Farafra was the first oasis to fall to the conquering Arabs, and its inhabitants later converted to Islam...

The Forgotten Oasis, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 03, March 2006.

Archaeology has a triumvirate of classic finds by which all others are measured: Troy, Machu Picchu and the undisturbed tomb of King Tutankhamun. That list may have grown to four last month after American archaeologist Otto Schaden and his team uncovered the first cache of intact mummies in the Valley of the Kings in over 80 years — not 15 feet away from the mouth of King Tut’s tomb.

Schaden is the director of the Amenmesse project and is employed by the University of Memphis’ Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology. Schaden conducts his work in the Valley of the Kings under the auspices of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

In an exclusive interview with Egypt Today at the site, he spoke on what is likely to be a memorable high point of his career...

Raider of the Lost Tomb, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 03, March 2006.

In an exclusive interview with Egypt Today, SCA chief Zahi Hawass, the world’s most renowned Egyptologist, offered the following perspective: “Why is this discovery important? Because it was found seven meters away from King Tut! This area has been excavated before, even by Davis and Carter [discoverers of the tomb of Tutankhamun] and they missed this shaft. Everyone thought that the Valley of the Kings was finished.”

Obviously, the Valley is not at all “finished” revealing its treasures.

Hawass has heard and even been the centre of similar hype countless of times before and admits that “only 30 percent of our monuments have been excavated,” but doesn’t see this particular find as lastingly significant.

Otto Schaden, leader of the team that uncovered the find, generally agrees with Hawass’ estimation. Standing in front of the site, Schaden told et, “For all we know, even though they are buried here in the Valley of the Kings, they could be the king’s favourite cooks. It could be one of his nephews who never had a chance for a higher position. Who knows? You can speculate endlessly...”

Kings or Cooks?, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 27, Issue 03, March 2006.

The official KV63 website has been updated with a couple more entries by Dr. Schaden.

Otto's Dig Diary, Dr. Otto Schaden, Amenmesse Project, University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 2006.

Sharon Nichols' KV63 dig blog has been updated with several new posts but unfortunately these are to be her last as she he heading off back to Tennessee due to a change of plans. We wish her the best for the future.

Egyptomania, Sharon Nichols, 2006.