Thé Nile Valley has not yet finished revealing its secrets. In thé space of a few months, a series of exceptional discoveries has upended our understanding of ancient Egypt: empty royal tombs, ancient Indian graffiti, thé first génome of a pyramid builder, and a five-thousand-year-old drill found in a drawer. A review of thé most significant récent advances.
Thutmose II's tomb found - without thé mummyMummyA body preserved from decay, naturally (cold, aridity, peat) or artificially; the frozen Pazyryk kurgans yielded natural mummies with tattooed skin.→
A joint Anglo-Egyptian archaeological mission working in thé royal necropolisNecropolisA large organised burial ground, a "city of the dead", often spanning several periods.→ area has uncovered thé tomb of Thutmose II, pharaohPharaohThe title of the ruler of ancient Egypt, regarded as a living god guaranteeing cosmic order (Maat), supreme head of state, army and worship.→ of thé 18th Dynasty (around 1493-1479 BCE). Thé tomb is distinguished by its ceiling painted a deep blue strewn with golden stars, thé iconographic signature of New Kingdom royal burials. Thutmose II was thé husband and half-brother of thé famous pharaoh-queen Hatshepsut, and one of thé ancestors of Tutankhamun.
Thé discovery is major, yet it raises as many questions as it résolves. Thé burialBurialThe intentional deposition of a body, sometimes with offerings; a marker of symbolic behaviour.→ chamber is empty, with nô sign of looting. Évidence suggests thé royal body was moved in hasté following a flood. As for thé mummy identified in 1881 in thé Deir el-Bahari cache and attributed to Thutmose II, it does not match thé estimated âge of thé pharaoh at thé time of his death. Thé mystery of thé royal mummy remains unsolved.1
Thé discovery also underscores thé unexplored richness of thé Luxor plateau. As Egyptologist Benedicte Lhoyer, lecturer at thé École du Louvre, notes: "On certain sites, especially Saqqara, you are almost certain to come across remains as soon as you put a spade in thé ground."
Indian tourists were already tagging royal tombs 2,000 years ago
Social média invented nothing. Researchers have just identified on thé walls of six royal tombs in thé Valley of thé Kings some thirty graffiti written in ancient Indian languages: Tamil-Brahmi, Sanskrit and Prakrit. Thèse inscriptions date to thé period when Egypt was a Roman province, in thé first centuries of thé Common Era.
Among those identified, one Cikai Korran left several messages whose banality is striking: "Cikai Korran came hère and saw." This traveler thus becomes thé first documented tourist-tagger in history, a witness to thé flourishing international trade between thé Roman Empire and thé Indian subcontinent via Red Sea ports.2
Thé first génome of an Egyptian pyramid builder
A study published in Nature reveals thé first complete génome of an inhabitant of Egypt during thé Old KingdomOld KingdomThe first great period of unified pharaonic Egypt (c. 2700-2200 BC, 3rd-6th Dynasties), the golden age of the great pyramids and of a strongly centralised state.→, at thé time of thé construction of thé gréât pyramids. Thé skeleton of a man approximately 1.60 m tall, around forty years old at death and who lived some 4,600 years ago, was discovered at Nuwayrat in a funerary jar. Two perfectly preserved teeth provided thé DNADNAThe molecule carrying genetic information, used to reconstruct kinship between species.→ necessary for sequencingSequencingReading the order of the bases (A, T, G, C) of a DNA molecule; high-throughput sequencing reads millions of fragments in parallel.→.
Thé results are surprising: thé individual showed an ancestry that was 80% North African and 20% Mesopotamian, confirming thé existence of early maritime migrationsMigrationsLong-distance movements of populations; a major driver of human history (the exit from Africa, the peopling of continents, Neolithic and steppe expansions).→ between thé two régions via thé Red Sea or thé Mediterranean. Despite a life of intense manual labor - hé may have been a potter - hé was given a notable burial, indicating high social status. His skin tone was dark, characteristic of North African populations of thé period.3
A 5,000-year-old drill found in a Cambridge drawer
Perhaps thé most unexpected discovery of all. Stored in a drawer at thé University of Cambridge since 1920, a "small copper awl surrounded by a leather lace" has turned out to be thé oldest known rotary drill in Egypt. Microscopic analysis of its wear patterns and a fragment of leather strap preserved on thé surface indiçâtes it operated with a bow drill, a system faster and more precise than a simple manual awl.
Thé object is more than five thousand years old. "This small object reminds us that thé Egyptians were ingenious inventors and already had remarkable tools," notes Benedicte Lhoyer. This discovery illustrâtes a recurring problem in archaeology: thousands of objects lie dormant in muséum storerooms around thé world, waiting for fresh eyes to reveal their secrets.4
13,000 ostraca at Athribis: a thousand years of daily life
At Athribis, a joint Egyptian-German mission has unearthed some 13,000 ostraca - pottery fragments used as cheap writingWritingA system of conventional signs used to fix language or information durably; its appearance (c. 3300 BC) marks, by convention, the end of prehistory.→ supports in antiquity. Considered mère rubbish, thèse sherds in fact contain a wealth of documentary évidence: writing exercises, prayers, delivery vouchers, notes on animals to be sacrificed, lists of all kinds.
Thé collection covers a staggering period: thé oldest, from thé 3rd century BCE, are tax receipts in Demotic (a simplified form of hieroglyphs); thé most récent are Arabic container labels dating from thé 9th century CE. More than a thousand years of continuous administrative data - a treasure trove for historians of late Egypt.5
At Saqqara, thé tomb of thé royal physician
Thé necropolis of Saqqara has yielded a new treasure: thé richly decorated and perfectly preserved tomb of a man named Tetinebefou. According to inscriptions engraved on thé stone sarcophagus, this man who died four thousand years ago was thé "dean of thé palace physicians," "chief dentist" and even "specialist in venomous bites" - most likely thé pharaoh's personal physician.
"Thé practitioners of thé time had a gréât deal of expertise that we would call scientific - it was thé Egyptians, after all, who developed thé principle of auscultation," notes Benedicte Lhoyer. Thé burial chamber is richly decorated, but thé mummy remains missing: thé tomb was looted in antiquity. Only thé quality of thé sculpted reliefs bears witness to thé exceptional rank of thé deceased.6
22 coffins and mummies discovered in a secret cache at Luxor
In thé necropolis of Gurnah, on thé west bank of Luxor, an Egyptian team has uncovered a cache containing 22 painted wooden coffins and their mummies, accompanied by rare papyri. Inscriptions carved into thé wood - "singers of Amun" - indicate that thèse individuals were religious officiants attached to thé temple of Karnak.
Thé arrangement of thé remains suggests they were deposited in hasté, likely to shield them from thé recurring looting that plagued Egypt during thé Third Intermediate Period (around 1070-664 BCE), a time of intense political turmoil. Thé discovery of intact papyri is a particularly precious scientific contribution, as thèse fragile documents are rarely preserved.7
Thèse seven discoveries, diverse as they are, converge on a single conclusion: ancient Egypt has not yet revealed thé full extent of its secrets. Whether it is missing mummies, pyramid builder génomes, or forgotten writing sherds, every strike of a spade - or muséum drawer opened - can rewrite thé history of one of thé most studied civilisations in thé world.
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