Undisturbed Tomb found in the Valley of the Kings

akahige writes "Hot on the heels of the recent news about the death of King Tut comes a new story about the discovery of an unlooted and previously unopened 18th Dynasty tomb in the Valley of the Kings. American archaeologists found five mummies resting in sarcophagi, funerary masks, and coptic storage jars. It is the first such discovery since Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922."

Radar shortcomings

[lifeisgreat]

I'm wondering why a thorough surveying of the valley with radar/sonar hasn't been performed. Or has it? The best reference for tomb-finding via radar was the no. 1 google hit [touregypt.net] for "radar valley kings", indicating that a rather large tomb was located thanks to ground-penetrating radar.

Is the technology itself just really underwhelming when it comes to below-ground imaging? I'd assume so, but then perhaps the valley itself is just too great an area to survey accurately.

Anyway.. I want more gold-filled tombs! Shiny!

Re:Check the jars

[jpetts]

I'm assuming they mean canopic jars. Coptic is a term for orthodox Egyptian Christians, derived from Aegyptos (Greek for Egyptian). Copticism was considered a heresy for a long time, but *LOTS* of the early Copts were *VERY* influential in what became the Catholic church. Also, for some reason, a lot of Egyptian politicians are/were Copts too. See http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Coptic_Christ ianity [reference.com] or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Christianity [wikipedia.org].

Re:Tomb Building

[antifoidulus]

The old fashioned way, with misinformation of course! With all the information that flies at you in a day, how often can you actually check out the source of that info? Or it's reliability. Just flood the net with rumors while keeping the actual knowledge down to as few people as possible.

Vandalism or heroism

[PietjeJantje]

I always wondered about this..how long before digging up or "discovering" someone's grave before you're no longer a vandal of the worst kind, but a hero in the Indiana Jones mood?

Re:Tomb Building

[Wyatt Earp]

Burial chamber made out of granite walls with some steel sheets between the granite layers. A nice dark granite, something from Spain maybe. Floor would be granite as well, polished smooth and then buffed so it's extra smooth, then covered with a couple thousand little ball bearing, just to mess with people walking in. There needs to be a mechanism so that after the tomb is breeched aerosol anthrax is delivered into the tomb, not sure of a power source to run this system, perhaps a RTG running off an isotope with a long half life.