A ‘lost golden city’ in Egypt dating back 3,400 years is revealed in the so-called most important discovery in the country since the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922.
The city, buried for three millennia under the sand near the present-day city of Luxor, was uncovered in September 2020 by a team led by Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass and was unveiled to the world on Thursday.
“It’s amazing because we actually know a lot about graves and the afterlife,” Hawass said as NBC News gave a tour of the site. “But now we are discovering a great city to tell us for the first time about the lives of the people during the Golden Age.”
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“Every piece of sand can tell us the lives of the people, how the people lived then, how the people lived in the time of the golden age, when Egypt ruled the world,” he said.
“We spent a lot of time talking about mummies and talking about how they died, the ritual of their death. And that’s the ritual of their lives.”
The city is the largest that has been unearthed from ancient Egypt and is only partially excavated. Artifacts, including rings, scarabs and colored pottery, confirm the dating of the reign of Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt from 1391 to 1353 BC
Hawass’ team was looking for Tutankhamen’s Mortuary Temple and was surprised to see a series of mud walls rise from the sand, some about 10 meters long and built in a zigzag design that was characteristic of the period. Other archaeologists had previously searched for the city but failed.
With its warehouses, grindstones, ovens and meat production areas and everyday tools still intact, the site offers a rare glimpse into a working Egyptian city.
“The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamen,” Betsy Brian, a professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University, said in a statement issued by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.
Oddly enough, the team uncovered a buried skeleton lying with arms outstretched to its side and the remains of a rope around its knees. The ministry’s statement described it as ‘strange’ and said it would be investigated.
A keg of about 22 pounds of cooked or dried meat contains an inscription. “That year 37, dressed meat for the third Heb Sed festival from the slaughterhouse of the cattle pen of Kha made luwy by the butcher.”
The Egyptian team said that this statement, which mentions two people who lived and worked in the city, also confirmed that the city was active during the reign of Amenhotep III with his son Akhenaten, who was succeeded by Tutankhamen.
Future excavations at a cemetery and unopened graves at the site may help answer even more questions about the period.
Hannah Pethen, a British archaeologist and honorary fellow at the University of Liverpool, who worked on excavations in Egypt but was not involved in the Luxor tomb, said the discovery was a landmark in understanding the region.
“Everyone likes the thought of an exciting, untouched tomb, but it’s probably more and more important than when it was a pharaoh’s tomb,” she said.
“We have many tombs and we know a lot about them, but we do not have much evidence of how Egyptians lived and worked in their cities.”
The newly discovered city is now one of three sites from the same period – the temple of Rameses III at Medinet Habu and the temple of Amenhotep III in Memnon – and the key role of the newly discovered city may be to confirm that things are happening across the empire. occur, commonly occur.
“It really is the most important settlement on the west bank of the Nile from this period, so it’s going to be directly related to the tombs and cemeteries there, so we’re contributing to our understanding of the landscape. We have tombs, temples and now have we’re quite a big city, ‘Pethen said.
One of the greatest mysteries of the period is why Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, abandoned their religion and kingdom in Thebes (modern-day Luxor) to build a new city where they worshiped the sun. Some hope the lost city will provide clues, but not everyone is optimistic.
“I would not spend any money on it. Ahkenates have the habit of keeping its secrets. We have had several opportunities to learn more over the last 150 years, but somehow it never quite came down,” said Pethen.
But as Hawass put it, our understanding of the ancient world is constantly changing: “You never know what the sand of Egypt may hide.”
Charlene Gubash and Molly Hunter reported from Luxor, Egypt.
Charlene Gubash and Molly Hunter contributed.