DISCOVER THE LARGEST ANCIENT CITY OF EGYPT NEAR LOUXOR

The archaeologists who discovered it in September 2020 still cannot believe it. The mission began its excavations in September 2020 between the temples of Ramses III and Amenhotep III near Luxor, about 500 km south of Cairo.

"Within a few weeks, to the team's surprise, clay brick formations began to appear," the statement said.

And the site is "in a good state of conservation, with almost entire walls and rooms full of tools of daily life." For the director of the mission, Zahi Hawass, it is “the largest ancient city in Egypt” that has been discovered.

“The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun,” said Betsy Brian, professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University, in the United States, also quoted in the press release. In particular, it will allow "to offer us a rare glimpse of the life of the ancient Egyptians during the most prosperous hours of the (New) Empire"

A very well preserved lost city

The team has already unearthed several areas and quarters of the ancient site such as three royal palaces, an administrative and manufacturing center of the Empire as well as spaces of daily life such as a "kitchen", a " bakery 'with a cooking and food preparation area, storage ovens and pottery, residential areas where, buildings that seem to be linked to the administration, a workshop that produced mud bricks and decorations for temples and tombs, a necropolis with rock-cut tombs reminiscent of those of the nobles found in the Valley of the Kings, two graves of cows or bulls and an "unusual" human remains found with outstretched arms and the remains of 'a rope wrapped around his knees.

Everyday objects of the Egyptians

All these structures are full of everyday objects of the Egyptians such as jewelry, pottery, rings, scarabs but also casting molds for the production of amulets and decorative elements, colored pottery vessels and bricks. of clay bearing the seal of King Amenhotep III, allowing to date the period of activity of the city.

The abandonment of the city seems to have been rapid, without yet knowing the causes. The strange reign of Akhenaton could be the key. Son of Amenhotep III, 9th king of the 18th Dynasty, this controversial pharaoh breaks with the religion of the Empire, and turns his back on Thebes, then the capital, to found another. If his successors have reconsidered his radical choices, this brutal abandonment of 150 years has perhaps its role in the unusual preservation of the city. . This new discovery could therefore solve many unresolved mysteries around the reforming pharaoh, often referred to as a heretic.

“It's like a snapshot of history - an Egyptian version of Pompeii,” exclaims Salima Ikram, Egyptologist..