Forgotton box may hold the key to Egypt’s pharaoh without a face

ALL names were erased and the death mask was defaced. Now a forgotten box may help reveal who was buried in the Valley of the Kings’ most mysterious tomb.

Who was buried in this defaced sarcophagus is one of Egypt’s greatest mysteries. Picture: Ministry of Antiquities

ALL names were erased. The death-mask was defaced. Now a forgotten box may help reveal who was buried in the Valley of the Kings’ most mysterious tomb — KV55.

The tomb has no name. Just a number. The desecrated sarcophagus found within has had its face and names chiselled away.

It must have been made for someone significant: It is the Valley of the Kings, after all.

But who?

It’s been an enigma ever since its discovery in 1906. For years speculation has abounded. Was it the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten? One of his wives? A son?

No conclusive fragment of evidence has ever been produced. Now Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry Museums Department head Elham Salah has told local media that this most controversial of Egypt’s ancient burial sites will be the subject of a new specialist study.

The glint of gold and an old note sparked interest in this box, found sitting long forgotten in an Egyptian museum.

BOX OF MYSTERIES

Behind the move is a long-forgotten box recently found in storage at the Egyptian Museum of Tahrir.

In it were 500 scrunched-up gold sheets, the remains of a skull — and an old note scribbled in French with the date the tomb was found.

The note simply states the gold sheets were recovered from inside tasarcophagus within KV55.

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Analysis of the gold sheets in recent months has linked them to the sarcophagus itself — an otherwise well preserved royal relic with gold leaf ripped from its bearded face and the place which once bore its cartouche — or royal name.

Now Egyptian archaeologists are set to carefully examine each of the 500 sheets for any trace of a name, or any other sign of identity.

The skull fragment is also being prepared for further analysis.

The sarcophagus found within KV55 had its face and name panels obliterated. Picture: Ministry of Antiquities

ROYAL DUMPING GROUND

KV55 has presented something of a puzzle since it was excavated. Initially thought to have contained just one body, the relics have since been determined to have come from several different individuals.

Some archaeologists have speculated that the tomb was dug in a hurry to house royal remains transferred from elsewhere. In comparison to other tombs in the area it is small, simple and unadorned.

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Speculation as to the identity of the skeleton interred within the sarcophagus has ranged from Queen Tiye (Akhenaten’s mother), King Smenkhkare (a poorly understood identity that may have been a son of Akhenaten), or even Akhenaten himself.

All that was found by archaeologist Edward R. Ayrton in 1907 were four Canopic jars, a gilt shrine, some furniture, a silver goose head, bricks and a vase holder.

The tomb dates from the era of Pharaoh Akhenaten, Egypt’s ‘heretic’ king who threw the country into turmoil by establishing a new religion.

COLLECTING THE CLUES

The Canopic jars — which contain caps in the form of young women — were empty. They would normally contain preserved internal organs.

The shrine may have been made for Tiye, Akhenaten’s mother.

Akhenaten’s own name was found on two clay bricks.

The skeleton, initially assessed as being female because of the positioning of its arms, has since been determined to have been a male aged about 20.

Akhenaten was Egypt’s most controversial Pharaoh. He abolished the old religions and imposed the worship of a single god — the sun-god Aten — upon his people. He moved with his queen Nefertiti to a new capital at Armana, where he is believed to have died several years later.

His death brought about a bitter dynastic struggle, possibly resulting in the murder of his son Tutankhamun, whose famous — largely untouched — tomb was found by Howard Carter in the 1920s.