First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's
Egyptologists have discovered the first tomb of a pharaoh since Tutankhamun's was uncovered over a century ago.King Thutmose II's tomb was the last undiscovered royal tomb of the 18th Egyptian dynasty.
A British-Egyptian team has located it in the Western Valleys of the Theban Necropolis near the city of Luxor. Researchers had thought the burial chambers of the 18th dynasty pharaohs were more than 2km away, closer to the Valley of the Kings.The crew found it in an area associated with the resting places of royal women, but when they got into the burial chamber they found it decorated - the sign of a pharaoh,
"Part of the ceiling was still intact: a blue-painted ceiling with yellow stars on it. And blue-painted ceilings with yellow stars are only found in kings' tombs," said the field director of the mission Dr Piers Litherland Dr Litherland said the discovery solved the mystery of where the tombs of early 18th dynasty kings are located.
Researchers found Thutmose II's mummified remains two centuries ago but its original burial site had never been located.Thutmose II was an ancestor of Tutankhamun, whose reign is believed to have been from about 1493 to 1479 BC. Tutankhamun's tomb was found by British archaeologists in 1922.
Thutmose II is best known for being the husband of Queen Hatshepsut, regarded as one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs and one of the few female pharaohs who ruled in her own right.Dr Litherland said the "large staircase and a very large descending corridor" of the tomb suggested grandeur.
