London, April 29 (IANS): The pharaohs, or rulers of ancient Egypt, even got their children and infants mummified close to them, revealed a new excavation in the Valley of the Kings close to the city of Luxor.
“We discovered a remarkable number of carefully mummified new borns and infants that would have normally been buried much simpler,” described professor Susanne Bickel of University of Basel in Switzerland.
We believe that the family members of the royal court were buried in this tomb for a period of several decades, Bickel noted.
Titles such as “Prince” and “Princess” distinguish the buried as members of the families of the two pharaohs Thutmosis IV and Amenhotep III who are also buried in the Valley of Kings.
Both pharaohs belonged to the 18th dynasty (New Kingdom) and ruled in the 14th century BC.
The analysis of the hieratic inscriptions (related to hieroglyphics) revealed that tomb KV 40 contains the mummified remains of at least eight hitherto unknown royal daughters, four princes and several foreign ladies.
The researchers have been working on tomb KV 40 in the Valley of the Kings for three years.
From the outside, only a depression in the ground indicated the presence of a subterranean tomb.
Up to now, nothing was known about the layout of tomb KV 40 nor for whom it was built and who was buried there.
The scientists discovered mummified remains of at least 50 people in the center chamber and in three side chambers.
Based on inscriptions on storage jars, they were able to identify and name over 30 people this year.
The identification of people buried in the proximity of the royal tombs offered the team of researchers important insight into who had the privilege to spend eternal life close to the pharaoh.