CAIRO: An expedition of Egyptian archaeologists has unearthed a 3,000-year-old “lost city” in present-day Luxor, a discovery that is being described as one of the most important finds in Egypt since Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922.
The ancient city dates to the era of the Eighteenth Dynasty’s king Amenhotep III, who ruled the country from 1391 to 1353 BC, said prominent Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, who led the expedition.
“Many foreign missions searched for this city and never found it,” Hawass, a former antiquities affairs minister, said in an online statement on Thursday.
“The Egyptian expedition was surprised to discover the largest city ever found in Egypt,” he added.
The city was the largest administrative and industrial settlement in the era of the Egyptian empire on the western bank of Luxor, according to Hawass.
“The city’s streets are flanked by houses, which some of their walls are up to 3 metres high,” Hawass said.
A large number of archaeological finds, including rings, scarabs, coloured pottery vessels, and mud bricks bearing seals of king Amenhotep III, confirmed the dating of the city.
The statement quoted Betsy Brian, a professor of Egyptology at John Hopkins University in the United States, as saying: “The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun.” The excavation started in September 2020 searching for the mortuary temple of Tutankhamun.
“To the team’s great surprise, formations of mud bricks began to appear in all directions. What they unearthed was the site of a large city in a good condition of preservation, with almost complete walls, and with rooms filled with tools of daily life,” Hawass said.
Two unusual burials of a cow or bull were found inside one of the rooms. Investigations are under way to determine the nature and purpose of this practice.
“The archaeological layers have laid untouched for thousands of years, left by the ancient residents as if it were yesterday,” the statement said.
Egypt has in recent years announced a string of archaeological discoveries in an attempt to revive its battered tourism industry, a main source of national income.
After seven months of excavations, several neighbourhoods have been uncovered, including a bakery complete with ovens and storage pottery, as well as administrative and residential districts.
Amenhotep III inherited an empire that stretched from the Euphrates River in modern Iraq and Syria to Sudan and died around 1354 BC, ancient historians say.
He ruled for nearly four decades, a reign known for its opulence and the grandeur of its monuments, including the Colossi of Memnon — two massive stone statues near Luxor that represent him and his wife.
“The archaeological layers have laid untouched for thousands of years, left by the ancient residents as if it were yesterday,” the team’s statement said.
Bryan said the city “will give us a rare glimpse into the life of the ancient Egyptians at the time where the empire was at his wealthiest”.
The team said they were optimistic that further important finds would be revealed, noting they had discovered groups of tombs reached through “stairs carved into the rock”, a similar construction to those found in the Valley of the Kings.
“The mission expects to uncover untouched tombs filled with treasures,” the statement added.
After years of political instability following the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, which dealt a severe blow to Egypt’s tourism industry, the country is seeking to bring back visitors, in particular by promoting its ancient heritage.
Last week, Egypt transported the mummified remains of 18 ancient kings and four queens across Cairo from the iconic Egyptian Museum to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in a procession dubbed the “Pharaohs’ Golden Parade”.
Among the 22 bodies were those of Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye.
In January, Egypt unveiled ancient treasures found at the vast Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, including more than 50 wooden sarcophagi dating to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th centuries BC), a discovery Hawass said “rewrites history”.
The former antiquities minister, whose taste for hyperbole in his promotion of his finds has drawn criticism from some other archaeologists, is to lead a press tour of his team’s latest discoveries outside Luxor on Saturday.
Last week, Egypt paraded on Cairo’s streets 22 ancient royal mummies in a high-profile procession that marked their transfer from their long residence at the Egyptian Museum in iconic Tahrir Square to anew Cairo museum.
— dpa/AFP
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