Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Discover: Royal Mummies Cache in Luxor


Sat 09 Mar 2019 | 09:00 AM
Ali Abu Dashish

By: Ali Abu-Dashish, Taarek Refaat 

CAIRO, March 9 (SEE)- Archaeologist Zahi Hawass said that the findings of the royal mummies in Luxor's Deir el-Bahari Cache were one of the greatest discoveries of the late 18th century.

In the winter of 1871, a Shepherd called Ahmed Abdul Rasul's sheep Grazed in the rocky hills, at the site of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, and when one of his sheep disappeared, he followed its voice noticing that it slumped in a well carved in the rock. Abdul Rasul went down the well to discover a corridor filled with Pharaonic tombs.

He brought his brothers Hussein and Mohamed to verify the matter, realizing the tombs bear royal mummies. For 10 years Abdul Rasul and his brothers kept this discovery a secret between them, entering the tombs once a year and selling all the gold artifacts in it.

Consuls and dealers from foreign countries began visiting Luxor, at that time, to buy some of the stolen antiques and smuggle them outside the country. Suspicions began to arise, as traces of ownership outside Egypt began to appear.

The members of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority, led by French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero and his German assistant Émile Brugsch along with Egyptologist Ahmed Pasha Kamal, and Director of Qena police station Daoud Pasha started to the investigate the scandal.

On April 4, 1881, Maspero assigned the Luxor police to arrest Abdul Rasoul, who denied any knowledge concerning the royal tomb's robbery. Authorities searched his home and found no evidence of the criminal conviction, yet their suspicions did not subside and kept the suspect into custody until investigations were concluded.

Three days later, Kurna village residents, including the mayor, testified that Abdul Rasoul was a well-respected person, who could not be involved in illegal excavations or smuggling. Despite the fact that he was tortured in prison, he never confessed, however, his brothers refused to pide the stolen treasure with him.

On June 25, the elder brother went secretly to the Qena police station and informed them of the archeological site in an attempt to stop the ongoing conflict between family members. The police found more than 30 tombs and numerous artifacts.

On July 6, Brugsch and Kamal entered the cache for the first time, where they found tombs and royal mummies of the most distinguished kings and queens of the ancient Egyptian dynasties, including the king Seqenenre Tao, who began war of revanchism against Hyksos, Ahmose I (his second son), Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, Thutmose III, Ramesses I, Seti I, Ramesses II, and Ramesses IX.

On July 15, the steamboat belonging to the Antiquities Authority arrived to carry the royal mummies to Cairo.

On the day of the shipment, residents of Luxor lined up at the banks of the river to salute their ancestors. The women wore black clothes, and the men stood up, as if they were seeing the kings and queens from the past.